Young children take shelter inside Nasser hospital in Khan Younis
Dec 9, 2023. Posted by Balkan
Periscope - Hellas
A senior UN
aid official has warned that half of Gaza's population is starving, as fighting
there continues.
Carl Skau, deputy director of the UN World Food Programme, said only a fraction of supplies needed have been able to enter the Strip - and nine out of 10 people cannot eat everyday.
Conditions
in Gaza have made deliveries "almost impossible", Mr Skau said.
Israel says
it must continue air strikes on Gaza to eliminate Hamas and bring Israeli
hostages home.
Israel
Defence Forces spokesman Lt Col Richard Hecht told the BBC on Saturday that
"any death and pain to a civilian is painful, but we don't have an
alternative".
"We
are doing everything we can to get as much as possible inside the Gaza
Strip," he said.
Movement in
and out of Gaza has been heavily restricted since 7 October, when Hamas
fighters broke through Israel's heavily-guarded perimeter fence - killing 1,200
people and taking 240 hostages.
In
response, Israel closed its borders with Gaza and began launching air strikes
on the territory, restricting aid deliveries which Gazans heavily relied on.
The
Hamas-run health ministry says Israel has killed more than 17,700 Gazans in its
retaliatory campaign, including more than 7,000 children.
Only the
Rafah crossing bordering Egypt has been open, allowing limited quantities of
aid to reach Gaza. This week Israel agreed to open the Kerem Shalom crossing
from Israel into Gaza in the next few days - but only for the inspection of aid
lorries. The trucks would then go to Rafah to cross into Gaza.
Mr Skau
said nothing had prepared him for the "fear, the chaos, and the
despair" he and his WFP team encountered during their trip to Gaza this
week.
They
witnessed "confusion at warehouses, distribution points with thousands of
desperate hungry people, supermarkets with bare shelves, and overcrowded
shelters with bursting bathrooms," he said.
International
pressure and a temporary seven-day ceasefire last month had allowed some
badly-needed aid to enter the Gaza Strip, but the WFP insists a second border
crossing is now needed to meet demand.
Nine out of
10 families in some areas are spending "a full day and night without any
food at all", according to Mr Skau.
People in
Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, a city now surrounded on two fronts by
Israeli tanks, say the situation there is dire.
Dr Ahmed
Moghrabi, head of the plastic surgery and burns unit in the city's only
remaining health facility, Nasser hospital, fought back tears as he spoke to
the BBC about the lack of food.
"I
have a daughter, three years old, always she ask me (for) some sweets, some
apple, some fruits. I can't provide. I feel helpless," he said.
"There
is not enough food, there is not enough food, only rice, only rice can you
believe? We eat once, once a day, only."
Khan Younis
has been the focus of heavy air strikes in recent days and the boss of Nasser
hospital there said his team had "lost control" over the numbers of
dead and wounded arriving at the facility.
Israel says
Hamas leaders are hiding in Khan Younis, possibly in an underground network of
tunnels, and that it is fighting house to house and "shaft to shaft"
to destroy the group's military capabilities.
BBC News