There are no food or supplies have entered Gaza since in more than three weeks, the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday, which makes it the longest section without helping to enter the enclave, since Israel intensifies its military operations in the middle of the crushing almost complete block, collapsing the Gaza strip into a deeper despair.
“Critical supplies, including food and medical equipment, are severely exhausted and urgently necessary to address the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis,” said a UNRWA report published on Friday.
The World Food Program said in an operational update on Thursday that it only had enough food stocks to last another two weeks, “if the supplies are stretched.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are again at risk of severe hunger and malnutrition, since humanitarian foods in decrease and borders remain closed to help,” said the WFP.
The UNRWA report said that on March 18, after Israel broke its high fire with hamas with intense air attacks, more than 180 children were killed in one day, which UNICEF called “one of the largest child death tolls of a single day in the last year.”
According to health authorities, the death toll since the current conflict began on October 7, 2023 has exceeded 50,000, according to health authorities.
On Friday night, an Israeli missile hit the home of the Awad family in Al-Zaytoun, east of the city of Gaza, killing 15 people, including seven women and five children, two of them young children.
A NBC news team captured the moment when Atef Awad, a member of the surviving family, waited for rescuers to take out the bodies of their loved ones from the rubble.
“This is Abdullah, 14, and this is Najwa, only two years old,” he said. “The world celebrates their children’s birthdays and we celebrate their deaths.”
Israel’s defense forces did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
While some cry when their families are taken from the remains, others look for hospitals for disappeared loved ones. Inside the Baptist Hospital Al-Ahli in the city of Gaza, Daoud Awad raised the decks of the dead, desperately looking for the bodies of their loved ones.
“Where is my daughter? Where is my son?” He called, his voice cracked while looking.
Abdullah Al-Majdalawi, firefighter and rescue worker, described the immense challenges his team faces to recover bodies, citing the serious lack of equipment and resources.
Its history underlines the struggles faced by humanitarian workers in the enclave, who put their lives at risk to help survivors.
The Palestinian Society Red Crescent reported on Saturday that for the seventh consecutive day, the fate of nine emergency doctors is still unknown after they were “besieged and attacked by Israeli forces” in Rafah.
The PRCs also said that the Israeli authorities refused to allow rescue teams in the Tel al-Sultate area to look for lost doctors, asking the international community to press Israel to “reveal the fate of the missing teams.”
Unrwa also reported that four employees had been injured by Israeli strikes in March, and that several distribution centers in Gaza had suffered damage.
According to the local Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 50,000 people, including thousands of children, have been killed in the continuous offensive of Israel.
Israel has declared that its goal is to eliminate Hamas to avoid a repetition of the attacks of October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli officials.
Israel has said that he wants to eliminate Hamas to make sure that on October 7 he does not repeat himself, but he has become increasingly hostile in his rhetoric since he broke the high fire, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising a growing military force in his assault on Gaza, and threatening to take the earth.
Israel’s aggression aligns with the most combative rhetoric of the United States against Hamas and Gaza with President Donald Trump threatening “the people of Gaza” in early March that if they continued to have Israeli hostages, “you are dead!”
