Only around ten humanitarian aid trucks have distributed water and food in northern Gaza in two and a half months, the NGO Oxfam said on Sunday, sounding the alarm about the deterioration of the situation in the besieged Palestinian territory.
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“Of the scant 34 trucks carrying food and water allowed into the northern Gaza governorate over the past two and a half months, deliberate delays and systematic obstruction by the Israeli military have means that only twelve have managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” Oxfam said in a statement, a tally that includes deliveries through Saturday.
“For three of them, once food and water had been distributed in the school where the population was taking refuge, it was then evacuated and bombed a few hours later,” said the NGO.
Israel has strictly controlled the arrival of international aid, essential for the 2.4 million Gazans, since the start of the war triggered by the deadly attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
Israel has been accused on several occasions of committing “genocide” in Gaza, including before international justice at the initiative of South Africa – accusations that the Israeli authorities forcefully reject.
The UN General Assembly for its part approved Thursday by a large majority a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on Israel's humanitarian obligations towards the Palestinians.
Oxfam and other international humanitarian organizations have been “continuously prevented from providing life-saving assistance” in northern Gaza since October 6 when Israel intensified its bombings, the NGO said.
“It is estimated that thousands of people are still isolated, but with humanitarian access blocked, it is impossible to count them with certainty,” according to Oxfam.
“At the beginning of December, humanitarian organizations working in Gaza received calls from vulnerable people, trapped in homes or shelters, and who had arrived short of water and food,” she added.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
More than 45,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli military campaign, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
