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More than 170 non -governmental organizations operating in Gaza issued a joint statement asking for the end of the controversial organization backed by Israel and the United States to distribute food in the Palestinian territory.
In one declaration Titled “Family or shots: this is not a humanitarian response”, the NGOs demand “immediate actions to end the lethal Israeli distribution program (including the so -called Humanitarian Foundation of Gaza), restoring the mechanisms of coordination of aid led by the United Nations and lifting the block of the Israeli government to humanitarian aid and supplies.”
The statement is signed among other organizations by Oxfam, Save the Children, doctors without borders and Amnesty International.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (FHG) began operating at the end of May. Since then, in less than four weeks more than 500 Palestinians died and almost 4,000 were injured when they tried to access food, the statement said.
It indicates that among fatalities are orphaned children and their caregivers and adds that in more than half of the attacks against civilians in these places there were injured children.
It is estimated that there are about 20 thousand orphaned children in Gaza, according to Oxfam to BBC Mundo.
The statement affirms that “with Ruinas's health system, many of the injured are discouraged alone, outside the reach of ambulances and deprived of vital medical care.”
The 400 aid distribution points that operated during the high temporal fire in Gaza were replaced in the new system backed by Israel and the United States by only four distribution points controlled by the Israeli army: three at the southwest end of Gaza and one in the center of the territory.
The statement denounces that Israeli forces and armed groups, some of which operate with the support of Israeli authorities according to reports, “open routine fire against desperate civilians who risk everything in order to survive.”
Israel denies that her soldiers deliberately shoot against civilians and affirms that the FHG provides direct assistance to people who need it by choosing Hamas's interference.
The Israeli army declared that he is investigating reports on injured civilians near the FHG help distribution centers.
In response to criticism, a GHF spokesman said: “We have delivered more than 52 million meals in just five weeks. They are not issues of debate or press holders, but foods that arrive at Palestinian families every day. Meanwhile, other organizations are helpless while their help is looted. We have offered help to deliver it safely. They have refused.”
“The humanitarian community must return to its main mission: feed people, not to protect obsolete systems or avoid the discomfort of change,” he added.
“Die hunger or risk life”
Image source, Getty Images
The statement denounces that today the Palestinians of Gaza face an impossible dilemma: die of hunger or risk life trying desperately to obtain some food for their families.
“This is help to be legally entitled, a help that has been systematically denied. This constitutes a flagrant and scandalous contempt for international humanitarian law,” Rachael Cummming, director of Humanitarian Affairs for Gaza de Save the Children, told BBC.
“According to reports, Israeli forces have prevented ambulances from reaching the places of attacks to evaluate and treat the injured,” Cumming added.
According to a recent report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (FDI) anonymous that they received orders to shoot against unarmed civilians near the help distribution centers to scare away or disperse them.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, flatly rejected the report and described the accusations of “malicious falsehoods.”
The Israeli army also denied the accusations of deliberately firing against Palestinians who hoped to collect humanitarian aid.
In a statement issued on Monday, the IDF reported that they were reorganizing access to the sites, which would include new fences and signage, including directional and warning signals, to improve the operational response.
In response to Haaretz's article, the FHG said that “no incidents or fatalities have occurred in any of our distribution sites or in their immediate vicinity.”
Image source, EPA
“Absolute despair”
Since the Humanitarian Foundation of Gaza began operating in the territory, almost daily reports from Israeli forces have been received that kill people seeking help at the distribution points, according to stories of doctors, face -to -face witnesses and the Ministry of Health of Gaza, controlled by Hamas.
Bushra Khalidi, head of Oxfam policies in the Palestinian territories, told BBC Mundo that the aid points controlled by Israeli military “have become massacres scenarios.”
“What we are seeing are hordes of people who are confined in militarized areas only to get food. Help is being used as a weapon, as a tool to corner people in these areas with fences and create absolute chaos.”
Khalidi said people go to distribution points for total despair.
“I have my brother -in -law in Gaza and I asked if I had tried to go to those distribution points. He replied: 'No, I don't want to die.' This is how people see those centers in Gaza. People go there for absolute despair because they have nothing left. The whole population is on the edge of the famine.”
“In addition, reducing humanitarian aid to food is an insult. What about medical supplies? And of the drinking water? And of the materials for the shelters? And of the fuel that feeds the hospitals, the drinking water and the sanitation in Gaza? What of the specialized nutrition for a population that has suffered almost famine conditions in the last four or five months?”
In the previous system that operated during the ceasefire, the UN and other humanitarian oganizations they sent text messages to civilians to inform the delivery of aid in one of the 400 distribution points at a specific time, Khalidi said. “We believe and respect the dignity of the Palestinian people,” he added.
Image source, Getty Images
Oxfam and the other NGOs point out that due to extreme hunger, many families are too weak to compete for food rations.
“Those who manage to obtain food often return with only a few basic items, almost impossible to prepare without drinking water or fuel for cooking,” says the statement.
“Families take refuge under plastic canvases, operating improvised kitchens between the rubble, without fuel, drinking water, sanitation or electricity.”
Khalidi told BBC Mundo that Palestinian families in Gaza face the dilemma of deciding who they send to the aid points.
“People look at their families and see who has physical strength to go to these distribution centers. Will a mother leave her four children and risk dying since all her children are orphaned? Maybe the mother is too sick, or is injured or pregnant. And then she sends her eldest son,” said Oxfam's representative.
Rachael Cummings told BBC Mundo that a worker from Save the Children In Gaza, he pointed out that his neighbor, father of four children, had no choice but to go to a distribution point, since his family had run out of food or money.
“He went to Rafah and killed him. Our colleague now tries to help his neighbor's widow; he says he is homeless and traumatized and his children constantly cry.”
Image source, Getty Images
Accountability
The statement indicates that the current aid distribution mechanism supported by Israel and the US is designed “to maintain a cycle of despair, danger and death.”
“For 20 months, more than two million people have been subjected to incessant bombings, the use of food, water and other aids as a weapon of war, repeated forced displacements and a systematic dehumanization, all under the gaze of the international community,” says the statement.
Rachael Cumming said that “for more than a year children in Gaza have been starving in hunger and disease, while the aid is paralyzed on the other side of the border. They are made starving deliberately.”
“These deaths are totally avoidable. And for those who still struggle to survive time quickly.”
Image source, Getty Images
The NGOs are urgently urged to the states of the world to fulfill their obligations according to international law and ensure that there is an “accountability for the serious violations of international law.”
Bushra Khalidi told BBC Mundo that in January 2024 a group of 250 humanitarian and human rights organizations asked to stop the sale of lethal weapons to Israel.
“We ask that the sale of these weapons be stopped because, in fact, if they stop selling to build Israel, it will not die more people. They will not kill Palestinian civilians with total impunity, there will be no zero accountability for the indiscriminate massacre of so many innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
“The more these atrocities committed by Israeli forces without control are allowed, the more you will see how impunity feeds. And this is what we have seen: massacre after massacre without any accountability,” added the representative of Oxfam.
“The European Union continues to trade with Israel as if nothing happened. Governments have tools at their disposal that they prefer not to apply to stop this and force Israel to stop these atrocities now,” he says.
The FDI launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1200 people died and another 251 were taken as hostages.
At least 56,647 people have died in Gaza since then, according to the Ministry of Health of the Territory.
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