ShareUNITED NATIONS: Just 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza in two-and-a-half months, aid group Oxfam said on Sunday, raising the alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the besieged Palestinian territory. The Zionist entity authorities rejected the report, saying it was “deliberately and inaccurately” ignoring their humanitarian efforts.
“Of the meager 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Zionist entity military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” Oxfam said in a statement, in a count that included deliveries through Saturday. “For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours,” Oxfam added.
Zionist entity, which has tightly controlled aid entering the Hamas-ruled territory since the outbreak of the war, often blames what it says is the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid. COGAT, the Zionist entity defense ministry body coordinating Palestinian civilian affairs, slammed the Oxfam report. “The Oxfam report deliberately and inaccurately ignores the extensive humanitarian efforts made by Zionist entity in the northern Gaza Strip,” COGAT told AFP.
“Since October, over 2,100 aid trucks have entered the northern Gaza Strip,” it said, insisting that specific shipments “including food, water, and medical supplies” had been dispatched to northern Gaza areas of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia. In a report focused on water, New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday detailed what it called deliberate efforts by Zionist entity authorities “of a systematic nature” to deprive Gazans of water, which had “likely caused thousands of deaths... and will likely continue to cause deaths.” Zionist entity’s offensive has killed at least 45,317 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Oxfam said that it and other international aid groups had been “continually prevented from delivering life-saving aid” in northern Gaza since October 6 this year, when Zionist entity intensified its bombardment of the area. “Thousands of people are estimated to still be cut off, but with humanitarian access blocked it’s impossible to know exact numbers,” Oxfam said.
“At the beginning of December, humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza were receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water.” Oxfam highlighted one instance of an aid delivery in November being disrupted by Zionist entity authorities. “A convoy of 11 trucks last month was initially held up at the holding point by the Zionist entity military at Jabalia, where some food was taken by starving civilians,” it said.
“After the green light to proceed to the destination was received, the trucks were then stopped further on at a military checkpoint. Soldiers forced the drivers to offload the aid in a militarized zone, which desperate civilians had no access to.” The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Thursday asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to assess Zionist entity’s obligations to assist Palestinians. – AFP
