AFPKir children in Gaza
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is heading towards a catastrophe. The International Court of Justice in The Hague – where a lawsuit has been filed against Israel – rules in an interim judgment that there is now a case of famine.
The lack of food also hits children hard. According to the UN, 31 percent of children under the age of two in northern Gaza suffer from acute malnutrition. In southern Rafah this applies to 10 percent of the children. It is estimated that 50,000 children in the Gaza Strip are malnourished. And almost 1 in 3 victims in Gaza is a child.
Save the Children director Janti Soeripto was one of the few who were able to visit Gaza and has just returned. “They are hungry. You see the malnutrition. There is a lot of coughing among children, there is a lot of diarrhea and there are many people with eczema or rashes on their skin because they lack clean water.”
12,500 children died
She saw how doctors have to make choices. “Which premature babies should they send home, knowing they will die? Traumatic choices, knowing that only twenty kilometers away everything is there, but they will not be allowed in. That is unprecedented.”
Half of the Gaza Strip’s approximately 2.2 million residents are children. Since October 7, about 12,500 children have died as a result of the conflict, according to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Ministry. The UN states that more than one million children need psychological help as a result of the war and that 17,000 children are already on their own without any parental supervision.
Clean water and food are now a priority, says Soeripto, but she immediately mentions something else: “That is mental support. I spoke to a mother and she asked for psychological help. She said: ‘Because I am so traumatized. And my children are so are traumatized, that it is bothering us the most at the moment.”
Famine
Today there were food drops again. Aid is also coming in by land. According to the latest UN figures – dating from March 27 – 209 trucks. But according to aid organizations and the UN, far too little food comes to Gaza.
Aid organizations have previously sounded the alarm about the food situation in the Gaza Strip. And EU foreign affairs coordinator Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, has said Israel is to blame for the famine in Gaza. “Starvation is being used as a weapon of war. Israel is causing a famine.” Israel disputes all accusations and says more food is entering Gaza than before the war.
Desperate
The government announced today that Defense will again provide food aid via airdrops in April. In collaboration with Jordan and other international partners and in consultation with Israel.
But Soeripto calls it “theatre”. She saw thousands of trucks in Egypt. “Thousands of trucks with food, with water, with medicine. They are only allowed into Gaza to a limited extent. So the fact that we are going to solve this problem with pallets from the air, with no control over distribution, is simply unreal. I don’t have any words for.”
According to Israel, safe distribution in Gaza is a problem in any case. Chaos and fights regularly occur when distributing food. But, says Soeripto, “that’s the chicken and the egg story.” “There is so much need, people are desperate, so it becomes difficult to really do those distributions in a controlled manner. Even if bombs fall. We have to ensure that more than enough food and water goes in, so that that enormous need decreases .”
The UN Security Council this week called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during Ramadan. Soeripto calls for a permanent ceasefire. “Then you have to ensure that you really send aid in on a large scale. That we can then distribute it safely and in a controlled manner and then start talking about reconstruction.”
2024-03-29 21:06:03
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