AFPThe United Nations has warned that Palestinians “face diminishing survival conditions” in parts of northern Gaza under siege by Israeli forces as virtually no aid has been delivered in 40 days.
The United Nations said all its efforts to help an estimated 65,000 to 75,000 people in Beit Hanun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia this month had been rejected or stopped, forcing bakeries and kitchens to close.
Earlier this month, a UN-backed assessment said there is a strong possibility that famine is imminent in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military has said its six-week offensive targets regrouping Hamas fighters, and is facilitating the evacuation of civilians and the delivery of supplies to hospitals.
Hundreds of people have been killed and between 100,000 and 130,000 others have been displaced in Gaza City, where the United Nations has said essential resources such as shelter, water and health care are severely limited.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN agencies planned to send 31 missions to the besieged areas of the northern Gaza governorate between November 1 and 18.
Twenty-seven were rejected by the Israeli authorities and the remaining four were severely restricted, meaning they were prevented from fulfilling all the work they were supposed to do.
“This comes as the IPC Famine Review Committee said just 11 days ago that parts of northern Gaza are at risk of famine – and that urgent action is needed in days, not weeks. “.
“The result is that bakeries and kitchens in the northern Gaza governorate have closed, food aid [for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women] has been suspended, and water and sanitation facilities have been completely stopped.”
Mr Dujarric said access to three barely functioning hospitals there was also severely limited, amid what he called “severe shortages” of medical supplies and fuel.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization-led mission managed to deliver 10,000 liters of fuel to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia and transported 17 patients, three abandoned children and 22 caregivers to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
However, Mr. Dujarric said the aid workers were forced to unload all the food and some medical supplies they were transporting to the Israeli military post before reaching the hospital.
Kamal Adwan director Dr Hussam Abu Safia warned on Wednesday that the situation there was becoming “even more catastrophic”.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry cited it as saying the hospital had 85 patients receiving “minimum health care” and that it was being used by children to treat rising cases of malnutrition. Need food and baby formula.
Since Tuesday, 17 children had arrived at the emergency room showing signs of malnutrition and an elderly man had died of severe dehydration, he added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
But as of November 17, 472 aid trucks had entered northern Gaza through the Erez West crossing, according to figures from Kogat, the Israeli military agency responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, without specifying whether any of the aid had reached the besieged Gaza Strip. Areas allowed.
Kogat also said it was continuing to work with international partners to “facilitate a broader humanitarian response for the civilian population in Gaza.”
AFPOn Monday, a boy from Beit Lahiya told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today program that he and his family had fled Gaza City after leaflets were dropped from a quadcopter by the Israeli military and were immediately evacuated. was ordered.
“The Road from Beit Lehia to Gaza [City] It was rough and tumble and there was no transport available to us. When we arrived, we found nothing…no food or drink. We turned to schools, but there was no space left because the number of displaced people was so high,” he said.
“As a result, we were thrown into the streets and we didn’t know where to go. We are six families living in the streets, sitting on sand, mud and rubble.”
The IDF said in a statement on Monday that its forces had killed dozens of terrorists “through close encounters and targeted attacks” in the Beit Lahiya area over the past week.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Civil Defense Agency told the AFP news agency that two people, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed in a drone attack on a school sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahia.
He added that the agency’s first responders had also recovered the bodies of seven people killed in a late-night Israeli attack on a house in Jabalia.
On October 7, 2023, Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel, which killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.
More than 43,980 people have died in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.
