The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that Palestinians in northern Gaza are experiencing extreme suffering as the Israeli siege of the area continues. OCHA says there are harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction in the north. Meanwhile, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) describe apocalyptic scenes as atrocities against civilians and attacks on hospitals intensify.
"Civilians remain trapped under rubble, while the sick and wounded are deprived of life-saving health care. Families are without food, their homes destroyed, and they have no shelter. Nowhere is safe," OCHA said in an update on Wednesday.
International humanitarian law requires that civilians have the essential items they need to survive - such as food, shelter, medical care and other critical assistance. OCHA today reiterated its call for rapid, unhindered humanitarian assistance - "which must reach civilians in need."
In the northern Gaza governorate, the Israeli military has been carrying out a ground offensive since October 6 and has imposed a severe siege, particularly around the area of the Jabalya refugee camp, with almost no humanitarian aid allowed in.
On Tuesday, OCHA warned that people suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in northern Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means of survival. It also said that Israeli authorities continue to deny OCHA requests to help rescue civilians trapped under the rubble. In Jabalya, people have been trapped under rubble for days while first responders have been prevented from reaching them.
Meanwhile, the UN and its humanitarian partner agencies continue their urgent efforts to deliver much-needed aid to the people in northern Gaza. However, the Israeli siege on the North Gaza Governorate has prevented the UN World Food Programme (WFP) from reaching people there for the past three weeks.
Over the past three weeks, only 6 percent of coordinated aid movements to deliver humanitarian assistance to North Gaza and Gaza governorates through the Al Rashid checkpoint have been facilitated by the Israeli authorities.
According to WFP, very limited aid has also entered southern Gaza due to the insecurity at the Kerem Shalom crossing, despite the critical need for a safe and enabling environment for humanitarian operations and convoy movements into and within the Gaza Strip.
The UN agency warns that September and October saw some of the lowest levels of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza since late 2023, alongside a drastic reduction in commercial goods. So far in October, only 20 percent of WFP's operational food requirements have entered Gaza. A drastic shortage of supplies throughout Gaza has brought general food distribution to a near standstill.
In northern Gaza, which has been under siege for weeks, tens of thousands of Palestinians are trapped in hospitals and residential areas including the Jabalia refugee camp as the Israeli army attacks the area. In recent days, Israeli forces have targeted the last remaining hospitals in the north, including the Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals.
The ongoing Israeli siege and relentless bombardment of Jabalia refugee camp has killed hundreds of people, cut off food and water supplies, and prevented wounded civilians from reaching hospitals. The ongoing attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza are exacerbating the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis and putting the lives of tens of thousands of people in grave danger.
āThe Israeli military has ordered all civilians to leave, then shot people as they try to do so. Mothers, fathers and children have been shot as they try to find food and water, or as they try to recover the bodies of killed relatives that lie rotting in the street,ā the NGO Islamic Relief Worldwide said in a statement on Wednesday.
While the situation throughout the north is appalling, the situation in Jabalia is reportedly the most horrific.
āPeople in Jabalia are being starved, bombed and shot on sight. Drinking water is no longer available and food is running out. Simply going outside to search for food and water means risking your life, with mothers and fathers shot in the street as they try to find anything for their children to eat or drink,ā said an Islamic Relief aid worker in northern Gaza, whose name was not disclosed to protect his identity.
āWounded civilians are desperately in need of treatment but are prevented from getting it, as the nearest hospital is besieged. Tanks surround it and nobody is allowed to enter or leave, with patients trapped inside. Other hospitals are almost out of supplies and fuel, and are unable to treat many of the civilian casualties who are arriving.ā
Israeli strikes have reportedly targeted all three partially functioning hospitals in the Northern Gaza Governorate, with injured patients dying at Kamal Adwan Hospital amidst a lack of life-saving medical supplies, fuel and food.
Humanitarian agencies on the ground report that two water stations in northern Gaza have stopped operating due to lack of fuel. The suspension of services affects large areas. A request earlier this week to deliver 23,000 liters of fuel to the North Gaza Governorate was denied by the Israeli authorities. Since October 6, several attempts to deliver fuel to the Gaza Governorate have also been denied, while another mission was obstructed and could not be carried out.
The medical humanitarian organization MĆ©decins Sans FrontiĆØres (Doctors Without Borders, MSF) today called on Israeli forces to immediately cease attacks on health facilities, end the all-out war on the people of Gaza, and allow the evacuation of people in need of vital care.
Among those trapped in the north are MSF staff who are currently sheltering and working at Kamal Adwan Hospital as Israeli forces besiege and attack the facility.
āThere is death in all types and forms in Kamal Adwan Hospital and North Gaza. The bombardment does not stop. The artillery does not stop. The planes do not stop. There is heavy shelling, and the hospital is [being] targeted too. It just looks like a movieāit does not seem realā, said Dr. Mohammed Obeid, MSF orthopedic surgeon at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
He said there are no words to describe the situation in Kamal Adwan Hospital.
"It is disastrous. The hospital is completely overwhelmed. There are injured people everywhere, outside and inside the hospital, and we do not have medical and surgical equipment to treat them," he added.
āAmbulances cannot move. We cannot reach the bodies of the people killed and cannot save the injured ones who lie in the streets. Many of them died before reaching the hospital, and others died inside the hospital as we could not treat their wounds.ā
The UN and its partner aid agencies have also been forced to postpone the polio immunization campaign in northern Gaza due to the escalating violence, intense bombardment, mass displacement orders, and lack of guaranteed humanitarian pauses in most of the north.
This final phase of the vaccination campaign was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, with the goal of reaching more than 119,000 children in northern Gaza. Ongoing attacks on civilian infrastructure and other appalling conditions are jeopardizing the safety and movement of people in northern Gaza, making it impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination and for health workers to operate.
Islamic Relief stressed that international governments must increase pressure on Israel to stop the atrocities and allow sufficient humanitarian aid to reach the people. There must be an immediate ceasefire and consequences for the ongoing violations of international law, it stressed. The NGO is calling on governments to end all arms transfers that aid and abet these atrocities and likely war crimes, and to pressure Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to prevent genocide.
As influential governments of the world stand idly by, the suffering of the people of Gaza continues in all parts of the territory. Gaza health officials report that more than 42,700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, most of them women and children, have been killed and more than 100,000 injured since Israel began its war in the Palestinian enclave one year ago.
Among the dead are at least 312 aid workers, 230 UN personnel, 986 health workers and 168 journalists. More than 10,000 people - including thousands of children - are missing and presumed dead. Of the 40,000 identified dead, more than 13,000 are children and more than 7,000 are women. More than 35,000 children have lost one or both parents in the past year.
In total, more than 150,000 people, or more than 7 percent of Gaza's population, have been killed, wounded or reported missing in Israel's attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
According to the latest IPC report, released Thursday, the entire Gaza Strip is classified in emergency levels of hunger, and the threat of famine persists as aid declines and winter approaches. As of October, some 1.84 million people throughout the Gaza Strip are considered to be in crisis levels of hunger (IPC Phase 3) or worse, including some 133,000 people facing catastrophic food insecurity (IPC Phase 5) and 664,000 in emergency levels (IPC Phase 4).
Further information
Full text: Northern Gaza: The world must stop these atrocities, as food and water runs out, Islamic Relief Worldwide, press release, published October 23, 2024
https://islamic-relief.org/news/northern-gaza-the-world-must-stop-these-atrocities-as-food-and-water-runs-out/
Full text: Update from North Gaza: āI just donāt have wordsā, MĆ©decins Sans FrontiĆØres, press release, published October 23, 2024
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/update-north-gaza-i-just-dont-have-words