OCHA: People in Gaza are being killed while trying to get food

Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory, Jonathan Whittall, warned that as global attention shifts elsewhere, people in Gaza are being killed while trying to access food, stating: The attempt to survive is being met with a death sentence.

What we are seeing is carnage. It is weaponized hunger. It is forced displacement. It’s a death sentence for people just trying to survive. All combined, it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza, he said in a briefing on Gaza.

He added: We need to see accountability for the crimes committed; we need to see concrete political and economic pressure from states to bring this to an end; and we need to see a lasting ceasefire, in line with the rulings by the International Court of Justice.

This is the bare minimum. Inaction enables atrocities that are measured in human lives.

Since the total blockade was partially lifted – just over a month ago – people have been killed almost daily while trying to get food. I’ve been told over 400 have been killed; and I’ve met some of those injured over the past days in the beds and corridors of the overflowing Nasser hospital.

The majority of the casualties have been shot or shelled trying to reach US-Israeli distribution sites purposefully set up in militarized zones. We see a chilling pattern of Israeli forces opening fire on crowds gathering to get food. Those who are shot are often out of reach of ambulances. We have been told that people are missing, presumed dead, within these militarized zones.

Others have been killed when Israeli forces have fired on Palestinian crowds waiting for food along routes into Gaza. Just a few days ago more than 60 people were killed and hundreds injured when a tank opened fire on a crowd of people waiting for food trucks to arrive.

It shouldn’t be this way. There shouldn’t be a death-toll associated with accessing the essentials for life.

Last month, the United Nations Relief Chief called on the Security Council to act decisively to prevent genocide in Gaza.

Today, from Gaza, I can say without a doubt that not enough is being done, said the head of OCHA.

Palestinian life and that which sustains it continues to be systematically dismantled before the world’s eyes.

Water wells have run out of fuel or are in areas that are dangerous to reach. Broken pipes waste what little water remains. Children are queuing for water trucks that often don’t arrive.

Sanitation is worsening and diseases are spreading. Sewerage is overflowing in the streets.

Our warehouses stand empty while Israel restricts shipments to minimal quantities of mainly medical supplies and food that isn’t allowed to reach warehouses and then households. Displaced families flee with nothing – and we have nothing to give them. All of Gaza is compressed into around 17 per cent of the land.