Aid agencies sound the alarm as Israel’s Gaza blockade enters a second month

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - GAZA — One month after Israel cut off humanitarian aid from the Gaza Strip, aid agencies say the humanitarian situation there has deteriorated dangerously, with the plight of two million civilians worsened by intensive Israeli military operations.

The United Nations and several NGOs, as well as civilians in Gaza who have spoken with CNN, say hunger is spreading, there is less access to clean water, and fleas infest makeshift displacement camps.

The problems that have plagued the territory’s population for the last 18 months have been accentuated by the renewed assault launched by the Israeli military in March, which has included several evacuation orders.

The Israeli government shut down the supply of food and other humanitarian aid into Gaza ahead of the offensive, in a bid to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages and impose new conditions on the extension of the ceasefire. Israel has also said Hamas intercepts and diverts shipments of humanitarian aid into Gaza, a charge the US confirmed last May.

More than 280,000 people have been displaced in the past two weeks, and two-thirds of Gaza territory are now no-go areas, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Assem Al-Nabeeh, a spokesperson for the Gaza City municipality, told CNN that after several recent evacuation orders “people are literally being displaced everywhere, on main roads, in public parks, near garbage dumps, in squares, and even in buildings that are on the verge of collapse.”

“Even before the latest evacuation orders, only 40% of the city had access to water,” Al-Nabeeh said. He estimated that 175,000 tonnes of waste had accumulated across the city.

The senior OCHA official for Palestinian territories, Jonathan Whittall, said earlier this week that a “war without limits” was underway in Gaza. In a report released Friday, OCHA said: “Gaza faces renewed risk of hunger and malnutrition as the full cargo blockade, now entering the second month, almost halts all flour distribution and shuts all subsidized bakeries.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday that all 25 subsidized bakeries across Gaza had closed because of a lack of cooking gas and flour. It added that more than one million people were left without food parcels in March, and while the supply of hot meals was continuing, current “supplies will last two weeks maximum.”

The Israeli agency in charge of coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza says there must be “ a structured monitoring and aid entry mechanism” to prevent Hamas from seizing humanitarian supplies and to assure organizations’ operations stay “neutral and impartial.”

The agency – COGAT – said a new mechanism it is preparing would “support aid organizations, enhance oversight and accountability, and ensure that assistance reaches the civilian population in need, rather than being diverted and stolen by Hamas.”

The mechanism has been presented to international aid organizations, according to an official in COGAT, but its use is contingent upon a ceasefire deal or a change in government directive.

In the meantime, huge amounts of aid sit outside Gaza.

WFP says that some 89,000 tonnes of food waits outside Gaza, while food scarcity inside is driving up prices dramatically. A bag of wheat flour costs 450% more than it did a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, OCHA says access to water remains “severely constrained” – with two-thirds of Gazan households unable to access six liters (around 200 fluid ounces) of drinking water per day. After an improvement in water production and supply during the recent ceasefire, agencies are now struggling to repair and maintain infrastructure.

That’s also affecting sanitation in areas increasingly crowded with displaced people. “Sanitation conditions across the Gaza Strip remain alarming,” OCHA said, with makeshift displacement sites on the coast infested with fleas and mites.

The Biden administration repeatedly pressured the Israeli government to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, including pausing a shipment of bombs over concern about the civilian population in the coastal enclave. But that pressure has all but vanished under the Trump administration.

Gavin Kelleher of the Norwegian Refugee Council said at the end of March that “more than a million people remain in dire need of tents in Gaza” but his organization had “almost nothing left to distribute despite still seeing these massive forced transfers happening every day.”

“Many people, with no alternative shelter, are staying in structurally unsound and damaged buildings, where incidents of buildings collapsing on top of men, women and children continue to be recorded,” Kelleher added.

In recent weeks, an average of 100 children have been killed or maimed daily in Gaza, according to the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF. The agency’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said the strip’s children had “again been plunged into a cycle of deadly violence and deprivation.”

UNICEF says it and other agencies “have been unable to provide clothing and other essential items even to the most vulnerable of displaced children who only have the clothes they are wearing.”

As casualties have risen since the ceasefire ended, the World Health Organization reports that Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed with patients. It said Al-Shifa Hospital in the north of the territory was dealing with 400 people daily, nearly triple its average of 140 before hostilities resumed on 18 March.

Dr. Fadel Naeem, director of the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, told CNN his facility was overwhelmed by the number of bodies and injured people arriving. On April 3 alone, he said, 128 injured individuals had arrived “and the hospital simply lacks the capacity to handle this volume due to the ongoing blockade on the health sector.”

Naeem said the hospital had been forced to “prioritize,” by, for example, performing surgeries only for those who were more likely to survive. “Tragically, while waiting for care, some of the wounded died due to a lack of resources, operating rooms, and medical staff,” Naeem added.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency, which leads UN efforts in Palestinian territories, said “People are starving, chaos & looting have returned... People are exhausted as they continue to be locked up in a tiny piece of land.” — CNN