Famine in Gaza Is A Political Act of Violence and Genocide

JKR wrote:

jerrym wrote:

Since you never discuss the facts of the violence against the Palestinians since the time of the British Palestinian Mandate and the Naqba right through to the famine created by the war in Gaza, I will.
Israel itself had two terrorist leaders from the British Palestinian Mandate era be elected Prime Minister: Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun, and Yitzak Shamir, leader of the Stern Gang. Begin "proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency.
——-

And the leader of the Arabs in British Mandatory Palestine and in that area at the end of the Ottoman Empire was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, a full fledged Nazi and supporter of the Holocaust.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini[/quote]

Jerry replied

And some of the Zionist leaders were quite willing to cooperate with the Nazis and Fascist Italy as they wanted to create a fascist state. Indeed, one of them Zionist leaders thought so much of the Nazi brown shirt gangs, the Storm Troopers, that he copied their uniform. He was later elected Prime Minister of Italy, namely Menachem Begin, a founder of the Likud Party that is currently creating the famine in Gaza under Prime Minister Netanyahu, as you will see from a quote below.
"Avraham Stern was one of the leaders of the Jewish paramilitary organization Irgun. ... In January 1941, Stern attempted to establish an agreement with the German Nazi authorities, offering to "actively take part in the war on Germany's side" in return for German support for Jewish immigration to Palestine and establishing a Jewish state." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern)

This is not surprising considering that according to "to Yaacov Shavit, professor at the Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, articles in Lehi publications contained references to a Jewish "master race", contrasting the Jews with Arabs who were seen as a "nation of slaves".[18] Sasha Polakow-Suransky writes that "Lehi was also unabashedly racist towards Arabs. Their publications described Jews as a master race and Arabs as a slave race." Lehi advocated mass expulsion of all Arabs from Palestine and Transjordan,[19] or even their physical annihilation." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern)
Stern formed the extreme Zionist group Lehi that "met with an official from the German foreign ministry in Beirut. ... During the meeting, co-operation between the Jewish militia and the Nazis was proposed. Details of the meeting indicate that Lehi agreed to take “active participation in the war on Germany’s side,” and that a “partnership of interests” between “the German worldview and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people” was to be formed. Also written in the document was that “the establishment of the historical Jewish state on a totalitarian national basis, in an alliance relationship with the German Reich, is compatible with the preservation of German power.” (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230622-israels-state-archive-exposes...)

In the 1930s " The World Zionist Organization broke the Jewish boycott (of Nazi Germany) and became the principal distributor of Nazi goods throughout the Middle East and Northern Europe. They established the Ha’avara, which was a bank in Palestine designed to receive monies from the German-Jewish bourgeoisie, with which sums Nazi goods were purchased in very substantial quantity. Consequently, the Zionists brought Baron Von Mildenstein of the SS Security Service to Palestine for a six-month visit in support of Zionism. This visit led to a twelve-part report by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, in Der Angriff (The Assault) in 1934 praising Zionism. Goebbels ordered a medallion struck with the Swastika on one side, and on the other, the Zionist Star of David. In May 1935, Reinhardt Heydrich, the chief of the SS Security Service, wrote an article in which he separated Jews into “two categories.” The Jews he favored were the Zionists: “Our good wishes together with our official good will go with them.“ [82] In 1937, the Labor “socialist” Zionist militia, the Haganah (founded by Jabotinsky) sent an agent (Feivel Polkes) to Berlin offering to spy for the SS Security Service in exchange for the release of Jewish wealth for Zionist colonization. Adolf Eichmann was invited to Palestine as the guest of the Haganah. (https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/hidden/ch06.htm)

The Zionists had a naval base in Mussolini's Fascist Italy from 1934 to 1938 with the goal to bring "the fascist culture to Palestine". The naval school was called "The Betar Naval Academy, which was a Jewish naval training school established in Civitavecchia, Italy in 1934 by the Revisionist Zionist movement under the direction of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, with the agreement of Benito Mussolini.... The Academy trained cadets from all over Europe, Palestine and South Africa and produced some of the future commanders of the Israeli Navy. Although the Revisionists were keen to ensure that trainees avoided local Fascist politics the cadets did express public support for Benito Mussolini's regime, as Halpern later detailed in his book History of Hebrew Seamanship.[1] Cadets marched alongside Italian soldiers in support of the Second Italo–Abyssinian War and collected metal scraps for the Italian weapons industry.[1] They "felt as if they were living the true Beitarist life in an atmosphere of heroism, militarism, and nationalistic pride. ... In a clear expression of the solidarity between the Revisionist Academy and the Italian military the official publication of the Italian professional maritime schools, the Bollettino del Consorzio Scuole Professionali per la Maestranza Marittima, stated, "In agreement of all the relevant authorities it has been confirmed that the views and the political and social inclinations of the Revisionists are known and that they are absolutely in accordance with the fascist doctrine. Therefore, as our students they will bring the Italian and fascist culture to Palestine." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betar_Naval_Academy#:~:text=The%20Betar%20....)

Future Israeli Prime Minister also had strong connections to Fascist Italy. "Mussolini set up squadrons of the Revisionist Zionist youth movement, Betar, in black shirts in emulation of his own Fascist bands. When Menachem Begin became chief of Betar, he preferred the brown shirts of the Hitler gangs, a uniform Begin and Betar members wore to all meetings and rallies – at which they greeted each other and opened and closed meetings with the fascist salute." (https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/hidden/ch06.htm)

The famine continues to get worse and could well be a major factor in determining whether Israel "plausible genocide" ruling at the International Court of Justice becomes "genocide". Two of the authors of the article are of Irish ethnicity. The Irish, having experienced the 1845-1853 Irish Famine, damn well know what famine and that it is always a political act because their is always a choice of whether or not to feed the people. That's why every member of the Irish Parliament,  whether of a right-wing, center or left-wing party, unlike every other Western government, voted for a resolution demanding an permanent ceasefire and an end to the famine over a month ago. Trudeau, Biden and the rest of the Western governments are involved in this famine because they have done nothing to end the famine. In fact, they have the opposite by defunding UNRWA, the only relief agency with the capability to feed the starving Gazans according to 20 other relief organizations because UNRWA alone has the necessary personnel, 12,000, to do the job.

President Joe Biden recently said that in Gaza, “there are a lot of innocent people who are starving.” In fact, letting people in Gaza suffer and die from hunger and preventable disease is a political choice.

It is not too late to change this story if urgent actions are taken to achieve a cease-fire and the release of the hostages, and to allow a sufficient flow of aid into Gaza.

Only an immediate stop to the fighting, a massive increase in humanitarian assistance and the return of basic services can keep the number of deaths caused by hunger and disease from eclipsing the already shocking numbers of those killed in the war to date.

Four months after Israel launched its bombing campaign and tightened the siege of Gaza following Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 attacks, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians now risk dying from hunger and preventable diseases.

A further offensive on Rafah will surely accelerate the deepening hunger crisis given the more than 1 million people sheltering there with nowhere safe left to go. It also will dramatically diminish the already weak flows of aid.

When we can reach our humanitarian colleagues in Gaza, they report the horrors of daily life: Parents going without food for days, telling hungry children there’s nothing to eat, standing in line for full days to get a little wheat.

“If the situation continues,” one colleague writes, “we will see one of the biggest disasters we have faced as humanitarians. It will be due to hunger, disease, and the very polluted and dangerous environment in Gaza, resulting from the residuals of the thousands of bombs, the white phosphorus, the raw sewage floating all over the place, and the unsafe water being consumed as people don’t have other choices.”

Four months of constant bombardment has killed almost 28,500 people, destroyed much of Gaza’s housing stock and eviscerated its critical service infrastructure.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the global authority that monitors food insecurity and acute malnutrition, reports that the entire population of Gaza – more than 2 million people – is experiencing hunger at crisis levels or worse: “There is a risk of Famine and it is increasing each day that the current situation of intense hostilities and restricted humanitarian access persists or worsens. … This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.”

The suspension of funding for the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency by the U.S. government and other nations, because of allegations that agency employees were involved in Hamas' attack, exacerbates the nightmares and the risks. UNRWA provides lifesaving services to more than three-quarters of the people of Gaza and the logistical infrastructure on which most other aid depends.

'I don't want to die':Fleeing Palestinians reveal gap in international refugee protection

Conditions in Gaza have deteriorated rapidly

The speed of the deterioration in Gaza is unprecedented in recent history. Nearly 3 in 4 Palestinians in Gaza are drinking from contaminated water sources. Communicable diseases are on the rise. A reported 1.7 million people are displaced. Many are sheltering in UNRWA facilities.

Almost half the population of Gaza is now in Rafah, facing more bombings and a threatened invasion with nowhere else to go.

Gaza is a small territory dependent for food on commercial imports. Its limited agricultural production has been completely derailed; nearly all bakeries have closed due to lack of fuel and damage from airstrikes.

Israel’s siege has closed almost all border crossings and effectively halted commercial food imports. Even with two border crossings open, the amount of food being allowed in is, in the words of a colleague, “a drop of water to meet an ocean of need.” 

We know all too well, from experience, what happens next: Prolonged hunger becomes acute malnutrition because aid is blocked, vulnerable people lack adequate shelter and clean water, basic health care and nutrition services are unavailable and large-scale death follows.

Biden, do the right thing.Push Israel and Netanyahu hard now for a cease-fire in Gaza.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/02/16/israel-rafah-palestini...

As the UN once again warns of  widespread famine, Israeli soldiers fired on hundreds of starving Gazans as they ran toward aid trucks carrying food, killing one and injuring many in what is yet another war crime during the Gazan famine. Israeli gunboats also fired on small Gazan fishing boats to also block their obtaining food for starving people.

Desperate Palestinians rushing toward aid trucks to fetch food in central Gaza were forced to flee after Israeli troops opened fire on them amid the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the enclave.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza City in the central part of the besieged enclave running to get food items delivered by the United Nations in boxes on the back of trucks as bullets are fired.

“Desperate and hungry Palestinians are running out of options. Under Israeli sniper fire, they are risking their lives to reach one of the few aid trucks entering Gaza City,” said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza.

A Palestinian man speaking to Al Jazeera said people lack the minimum necessities of life.

“They came here to find something, at least some flour. People put themselves and their lives in danger for little things for their families. We’re below zero, there’s nothing, I assure you that people will die of hunger,” said the Palestinian man. “People now go to the garbage to find something to eat.”

Israeli gunboats fire on Palestinian fishing boats

Footage has also shown how Israeli gunboats have opened fire on small Palestinian boats that were trying to fish off Gaza’s coast as dozens watched from land.

“Under the Israeli blockade [before the war], Palestinians used to be able to fish up to 37km [23 miles] out to the sea, but not any more,” said Abu Azzoum.

This threatens a vital source of food in the enclave where only limited numbers of aid trucks have been allowed in by Israel, which the United Nations has said are far too low to meet urgent needs.

The UN has warned of widespread famine-like conditions in the Gaza Strip growing by the day and impacting most of the 2.3 million Palestinians living there.

Desperation is also growing in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, where flour mills have ground to a halt.

“There is no wheat. The price of one bag of wheat today has reached more than 3,000 shekels, or more than $1,000,” said a Palestinian man operating a flour mill in the area.

Israel, which controls entry points, has refused to allow more aid into Gaza despite international pressure, a United Nations Security Council resolution in December, and interim rulings by the International Court of Justice.

Its planned ground invasion into Rafah, which it brands the “last bastion” of Hamas, only promises to make the humanitarian situation more dire.

About 1.4 million Palestinians are in Rafah, where they have been displaced by previous Israeli attacks, some multiple times. Hundreds have begun fleeing Rafah in the past few days as Israel remains adamant on its promise to attack despite international pressure.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/19/israeli-soldiers-fire-at-palest...

The UN’s children agency (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Programme are all warning “The Gaza Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza,”. Shania Low of the Norwegian Refugee Council reported yesterday on Aljazeera that "15.6% of children in northern Gaza are in the worst stage of starvationcompared to less than one percent before October 7th".

Alarm bells are being sounded by the UN’s children agency (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Programme following the publication of a new report on malnutrition in Gaza.

“We’ve been warning for weeks that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of a nutrition crisis,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action Ted Chaiban said.

“The Gaza Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza,” Chaiban said.

According to the report, the situation is extreme in the north of Gaza, which has been cut off from almost all humanitarian aid relief for weeks and where 15.6 percent – or one in six children – under the age of two are “acutely malnourished”.

In the south, in Rafah, 5 percent of children under two are acutely malnourished.

“Hunger and disease are a deadly combination,” Dr Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies programme said.

“Hungry, weakened and deeply traumatised children are more likely to get sick… It’s dangerous, and tragic, and happening before our eyes,” Ryan said.

A surge in hunger poses grave threats to children's health

• 1 in 6 children under two are severly malnourished
• 95% of households are limiting meals and portion sizes
• 64% of families eat only one meal a day

 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/20/israels-war-on-gaza-li...

A picture of the Gazan famine is worth more than a million words for the more than a million starving Gazan children created by the Israeli invasion of Gaza and its deliberate creation of famine. 

Palestinian children hold bowls and containers as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen amid shortages of food supplies, as the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 13. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

https://www.reuters.com/pictures/fear-famine-grows-gaza-hunger-hits-cris...

The article's title says it all: "In Gaza City, death and famine take hold amid Israel’s war".

Palestinian children waiting for food cooked by a charity amid widespread hunger, as Israel's war on Gaza continues, in Rafah on February 5, 2024 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

The Israeli blockade, allied to the incessant bombing, has created a world where hunger and infection have free rein.

More than four months of Israel’s war on Gaza have left it unrecognisable. In the streets, famine is a reality for nearly all the besieged population while the smell of death is ever-present.

With nearly no access to medical care, many are suffering from disease, while infection awaits tens of thousands of men, women and children injured by Israeli attacks.

Famine

Hunger has taken a heavy toll on everyone. With businesses and banking services either destroyed or unable to operate, there is no cash, no income and little to nothing to meet the cost of feeding their starving families.

With Gaza’s ability to produce its own food decimated by Israeli bombs, a hungry population looks for food from outside the Strip, provisions increasingly limited by Israel’s continuing blockade.

Agriculture is in ruins. Fertile areas such as Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia lie neglected, as winter rains, vital to farmers, fall unheeded. Poultry and livestock have also been destroyed, victims either directly or indirectly of the Israeli bombs.

Fish is a luxury lost to the coastal enclave’s population.

Famine is a growing reality. Few supplies are left and malnutrition is growing.

The international aid that does make it in can barely meet the needs of a hungry population, or prevent the situation from deteriorating.

Since the beginning of Israel’s ground offensive, many humanitarian agencies, like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have halted operations, meaning hundreds of thousands of people cannot access any aid.

The endless waves of bombing have destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, razing or shuttering the factories producing and processing food.

About half the population of Gaza now faces daily shortages of bread, clean water and the basic ingredients for life.

In the east of Gaza, canned goods were once processed and bakeries seemed to stand on every street, they are now simply memories for the starving population.

As are meat and dairy. What food can be found is either extremely expensive or greatly reduced in quantity, often both.

The struggle extends beyond food. Water has become so scarce that contaminated drinking water has become the norm. As more people, especially children, consume polluted water, severe bacterial illnesses have thrived.

For those willing to risk falling buildings or bombs, firewood to boil water can be found, but cooking gas is a distant memory.

Disease

With uncooked food common, parents, desperate to feed their starving children, feel they have no option but to give them raw food, despite the consequences of doing so.

Across the Strip, infrastructure and sewage systems have been destroyed, resulting in a free flow of sewage that contributes to growing respiratory problems as a population weakened by hunger keeps breathing. Added to that is the smell of the dead, decomposing bodies of people and animals lying scattered in the streets or under rubble, polluting the air and raising the risk of disease transmission.

Medical facilities in Gaza have nearly all been destroyed, leaving those injured by Israeli attacks isolated and those with more complex or chronic needs, such as prenatal care or treatments like dialysis, without proper care. In and around Gaza City, there are only two functioning hospitals: al-Shifa Hospital and Ahli Arab Hospital. In addition to struggling with many of the same circumstances as the rest of the Strip, they struggle with the demands of hundreds of thousands of injured and sick people calling for help.

The outcome is predictable. Thousands are slowly dying. Without electricity, large numbers of the injured, the sick, premature newborn babies and those lying in intensive care units (ICUs) must all depend on oxygen pumped by machines reliant on generators, whose fuel supply is uncertain.

Everyone is at risk. Prenatal care units are out of service, increasing the risk of babies being born with health problems or complications. Inevitably, as the bombing continues, the incidence of disease and the ever-present need for amputations rarely recedes.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/21/in-gaza-city-death-and-famine-t...

I hope Mahmoud Fatouh's name, the two month old who starved to death in Gaza, is heard around the world the way Alan Kurdi's was in 2015 when this Syrian refugee's washed up on a Turkish beach triggering a massive response, but this time it must be to save everyone where they live in Gaza, not to create millions more refugees or people who died of starvation. "One in six children under two in Gaza was acutely malnourished, it was estimated on 19 February." Acutely malnourished is the same state of starvation that two month old Mahmoud Fatouh' who just starved to death was classified as being in. Sadly I expect the opposite as the US, Canada, the UK, and the EU continue to defund the one agency, UNRWA, capable of dealing in this famine in a major way according to 20 other agencies. On CBC News Network's Power and Politics, Danny Glenwright Executive Director and President of Save the Children Canada, said that "80% of aid in Gaza is provided by UNRWA. Simply put, no other organization, inlcuding ourselves, can do that job."

Quote:

A two-month-old baby died as a result of malnutrition in the Gaza City hospital, the Health Ministry of Hamas announced.

The World Food Program said this week that its teams were reporting "unprecedented levels of desperation" as the United Nations warned that 2,2 million people were on the brink of starvation.

The French News Agency (AFP) has reported on a serious food situation in northern Gaza. In a recent update, AFP says a man in the Jabalia refugee camp was so desperate to feed his family that he slaughtered two of his horses for the purpose.
Contaminated water, power outages and overcrowding were already a problem in the densely populated camp, which was established in 1948. Now food is running out, while aid agencies unable to enter the area due to bombing - and the frantic looting of the few trucks that try to get through.

The UN children's agency Unicef ​​has warned that alarming food shortages, rising malnutrition and disease could lead to an "explosion" in child deaths in Gaza.
One in six children under two in Gaza was acutely malnourished, it was estimated on 19 February.

The url below includes a man holding up the scrap of bread in his hand that he gets to eat every day or two in northern Gaza with some, such as the two month old who starved to death yesterday, already paying the ultimate price with their lives. 

Alive but not well: People of northern Gaza suffer as famine spreads

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240224-alive-but-not-well-people-of-...

A Palestinian man gave his testimony to the famine taking over the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, as aid is not allowed into Gaza. He says a person is lucky to get a crumb of a loaf of animal food mixed with grass bread. Such inadequate nutrition left many children poisoned and with stomach illnesses. He says hunger and famine are eating away at the children while the mothers live in agony. He added: ‘Our people in northern the Gaza Strip are living in a real famine that has never been witnessed in history.’

ETA: Dalia Al Awqati with Save The Children says "roughly 1.1M children in Gaza are at risk of dying from starvation as food supply is 'horrific.' People are dying every day now from hunger. ... The use of starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited by international law. We're at a point where conditions are absolutely catastrophic". Her comments can be watched at the url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEDb8rPAYBU

Families in Gaza are forced to forage for scraps of food left by rats and eating leaves out of desperation to survive with nearly five months of war and rapidly declining aid supplies leaving all 1.1 million children in Gaza facing starvation, Save the Children said.

An aid worker for Save the Children who is currently in Rafah said her relatives in northern Gaza have been driven to desperate measures to survive.

Nour* said: “My husband told me people have resorted to eating bird and animal food and tree leaves out of desperation. He has been forced to scavenge for scraps of food; he recently found scraps in his sister’s house that had already been ruined by rats but washed them and ate them anyway because there is literally nothing else left to eat. He said he will not perish from bombs, but from scarcity of food.”

All 1.1 million children in Gaza are now facing death by starvation and disease as aid delivery is impossible to carry out safely, Save the Children said. Continued fighting, Israeli bombardment and insecurity have impeded safe aid delivery.

The risk of famine is projected to increase as long as the government of Israel continues to impede the entry of aid into Gaza and access to adequate food, water, sanitation, hygiene and comprehensive health and nutrition services for children and families in urgent need.

The UN has said that between 1 January and 15 February, more than 50% of aid delivery and assessment missions to areas north of Wadi Gaza – where levels of starvation are highest – were denied by Israeli forces. On 5 February, the UN reported that Israeli forces fired on one of its convoys carrying food supplies in central Gaza.

Any use of starvation as a method of warfare is strictly prohibited under international law and will have deadly consequences for children.

The World Food Programme this week paused aid deliveries to northern Gaza due to security concerns, citing “unprecedented levels of desperation” and the urgent need for more aid routes to be opened up.

Meanwhile, a report from the Global Nutrition Cluster – a group of aid agencies working in Gaza, including Save the Children – published earlier this week found that during December to January, more than 90% of children under 2 and pregnant and breastfeeding women in both northern Gaza and Rafah faced severe food poverty. The Cluster could only gather a limited sample size of data given access issues.

The same report also found that one in six children in northern Gaza were acutely malnourished – a condition that can lead to severe wasting and that weakens the immune system, putting children more at risk of death from common childhood diseases as well as lifelong growth and developmental challenges.

With limited aid access making any meaningful and necessary humanitarian response impossible, it is more than likely that the situation has dramatically deteriorated since this data was collected, Save the Children said.

The destruction of civilian infrastructure during more than four months of war has decimated essential services like water, sanitation, food supplies, electricity, health – all of which affect children more quickly and severely than adults.

Meanwhile, the suspension of funding from major donors to UNRWA will see lifesaving aid from the UN agency to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and across the region run out in just weeks.

Jason Lee, Country Director for Save the Children in the occupied Palestinian territory, said: “This is mass starvation of an entire people. How can anyone live like this? Behind the immense death toll from this war – more than 28,000 people, 70% of them women and children – starvation is causing children and families to die in slow motion.

“The life-saving aid which families across Gaza rely on has either been drip-fed or denied by Israeli authorities – while essential services have been decimated by ongoing fighting. Conditions to provide humanitarian assistance to children in Gaza are not only not being met but are getting worse. 

“The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law. The only way to put an end to this – to keep children and families alive – is an immediate, definitive ceasefire and the immediate increase of unfettered humanitarian aid. Without all these, a meaningful response inside Gaza is impossible, and children will continue to die.” 

 

Save the Children is calling for an immediate, definitive ceasefire to save and protect the lives of children in Gaza, and for all parties to the conflict to adhere to International Humanitarian Law, uphold the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling and refrain from actions which undermine the provisional measures indicated by the ICJ.

Save the Children is calling for safe unfettered humanitarian aid access for a massive scale-up in humanitarian aid supplies and the personnel needed to deliver it, particularly in northern Gaza. Unfettered access means sufficient goods, including commercial, aid, humanitarian personnel, and fuel can safely reach children and families across Gaza , as well as the opening of all access points.

Save the Children is also calling for all donor governments and the rest of the international community to resume and scale up funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) as quickly as possible.

Save the Children has been providing essential services and support to Palestinian children impacted by the ongoing conflict since 1953. Save the Children’s team in the occupied Palestinian territory has been working around the clock, prepositioning vital supplies to support people in need, and working to find ways to get assistance into Gaza.

https://www.savethechildren.ca/article/gaza-families-forced-to-forage-fo...

Israel has been blocking food shipments thereby creating the famine in Gaza that "poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths, which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza,”  according to Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director for humanitarian action. Therefore Israel is further demonstrating its willingness to engage in genocide because as the occupying power it is required by international law to ensure everyone is fed. Out of desperation, Jordan has airdropped four planeloads of food into Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel is doing everything to ensure the famine gets worse. 

The Jordanian army arranged on Monday the biggest air drop operation so far to deliver aid to Gaza where the mostly displaced population of 2.3 million is facing crisis levels of hunger, an army statement said.

The operation deployed four C-130 planes including one belonging to the French air force, army spokesperson Mustafa Hiyari said.

Aid was dropped to 11 sites along the Gaza coast from its northern edge to the south for civilians to collect, Hiyari told Reuters. Previous air drops that parachuted in medicines and humanitarian provisions were sent to hospitals the Jordanian army runs in Gaza.

https://www.newarab.com/news/gaza-brink-famine-palestinian-government-re...

Jordan’s King Abdullah says aid to Gaza must be doubled in order to avoid a ‘catastrophic humanitarian’ crisis.

Jordan’s King Abdullah has called for a doubling of humanitarian assistance to Gaza in order to avoid an already “catastrophic humanitarian situation” from further deteriorating, as Israel continues to block or delay large portions of aid from the beleaguered strip. Numerous rights groups have concluded that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

State-run media in Jordan quoted the king as telling visiting US development chief Samantha Power that more pressure must be exerted on Israel. The US has consistently said more aid needs to be allowed into Gaza, but has not pressured Israel when it refuses to comply.

Jordan has, over the last two days, carried out two aid missions via air to the Gaza Strip, dropping much-needed food and other supplies over central and northern Gaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/27/israels-war-on-gaza-li...

Two hours ago: 

• Gaza’s Health Ministry has again sounded the alarm about the rising threat of famine in the Strip, saying that “thousands of citizens” could die from malnutrition and dehydration in the coming days as Israel continues to block or delay shipments of vital humanitarian aid. The ministry said that a number of malnourished infants arrived at a hospital in northern Gaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/27/israels-war-on-gaza-li...

The UN is warning "One quarter of Gaza's people one step away from famine". A famine that Israel has created by cutting off food to Gazans. Meanwhile Biden mumbles the need to feed the Gazans but does nothing to feed them, not even using its vast airforce to air drop food to Gazans, unlike Jordan's tiny airforce. 

At least 576,000 people in the Gaza Strip - one quarter of the population - are one step away from famine, a senior U.N. aid official told the Security Council on Tuesday, warning that widespread famine could be "almost inevitable" without action.

"Very little will be possible while hostilities continue and while there is a risk that they will spread into the overcrowded areas in the south of Gaza. We therefore reiterate our call for a ceasefire," said Ramesh Rajasingham, coordination director of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

One in six children under age 2 in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition and wasting and practically all the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on "woefully inadequate" food aid to survive, he told the Security Council.

Rajasingham said the U.N. and aid groups face "overwhelming obstacles just to get a bare minimum of supplies into Gaza." These include crossing closures, restrictions on movement and communication, onerous vetting procedures, unrest, damaged roads and unexploded ordnance, he said. ...

The U.S. urged its ally Israel to keep border crossings open for humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza and to facilitate opening of more crossings, Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood told the Security Council.

"Simply put, Israel must do more," he said. "We continue to call on Israel to improve deconfliction procedures to ensure aid can move safely and securely."

The World Food Programme "is ready to swiftly expand and scale up our operations if there is a ceasefire agreement," WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told the Security Council.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/one-quarter-gazas-people-one-s...

The Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine Riyad Mansour told ambassadors that in reality, a famine is underway in Gaza and getting worse every day that Israel carries on its “criminal aggression”.

Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine Riyad Mansour told ambassadors that in reality, a famine is underway in Gaza and getting worse every day that Israel carries on its “criminal aggression”.

"We must stop for a moment and consider what this truly means," he said. “What it means to forage for food in the rubble, sand and trash, to eat animal feed or food ravaged by rats.”

He said Israel was the architect of this human and humanitarian catastrophe, which it has purposely designed to collectively punish Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians. 

That this catastrophic famine and genocide has been allowed to happen at all and continue for this long "brings shame on all of us, not least this Security Council", Mr. Mansour added.

srael’s weaponization of food to punish the Palestinian people is not a secret. It was declared months ago, in October 2023 by the highest-ranking Israeli Government and military officials, some of whom publicly stated that such policies would hasten the decline of humanitarian conditions and provoke a mass exodus from Gaza or a so-called “voluntary migration” of this “demographic threat”.

This Council must uphold its responsibilities, he said. 

Rectifying the current abhorrent situation requires three immediate steps: a ceasefire now to halt the Israeli aggression; the unimpeded, accelerated delivery of humanitarian aid at scale throughout all of Gaza; and accountability measures for all the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel. 

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146997