UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 : Most families in the Gaza Strip are surviving on one meal a day and one-third go entire days without eating as a result of Israel\u2019s continued bombardment of the enclave, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and partners.
\nThe meals which families are able to obtain are nutritiously poor \u2014 thin broths, lentils or rice, one piece of bread or sometimes just a combination of herbs and olive oil known as duqqa, WFP said.
\nAdults are routinely skipping meals in order to leave more for children, the elderly and the ill. And still, on average since January, 112 children have been admitted on a daily basis for acute malnutrition.
\n\u201c[When my children wake up at night hungry] I tell them \u2018Drink water and close your eyes.\u2019 It breaks me. I do the same \u2013 drink water and pray for morning,\u201d as one parent said.
\nDue to these extreme food shortages, people in Gaza are forced to risk their lives on a daily basis to access small amounts of food. Since 27 May, 549 Palestinians have been killed and 4,066 have been injured trying to access food, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of casualties have been shot or shelled trying to reach US-Israeli distribution sites purposefully set up in militarized zones,\u201d said Johnathan Whittall, head of office for the UN humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
\nSince the end of May, the US-Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been distributing aid in Gaza, bypassing the UN and established NGOs.
\nThe UN has said Palestinians who seek aid from the GHF face threats of gunfire, shelling and stampedes.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be out there. But what choice do we have? Our kids cry for food. We don\u2019t sleep at night. We walk, wait, and hope we come back,\u201d one Palestinian told WFP.
\nProtracted conflict and bombardment have pushed almost all service systems in Gaza to the brink.
\nAs a result of fuel shortages, only 40 per cent of drinking water facilities are functional and 93 per cent of households face water insecurity.
\nThe fuel shortage is also negatively affecting the provision of medical services with medical equipment and medicine storage reliant on electricity.
\nFor the first time since the resumption of limited aid entry on 19 May, nine trucks containing medical items offloaded supplies on the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday.
\nSince the resumption of Israeli bombardment in Gaza on 18 March after a 42-day ceasefire, over 684,000 Palestinians have been displaced. And for almost all of them, this is not the first time.
\nWith over 82 per cent of Gaza either designated as an Israeli militarized zone or under a displacement order, there are few places \u2014 much less safe places \u2014 that the newly displaced can go.
\nThey have been forced to take shelter in overcrowded displacement camps, makeshift shelters, damaged buildings and sometimes just on open streets. Schools are no longer buildings of learning but of shelter.
\n\u201cSchools have transformed into empty shelters, devoid of any elements of a safe learning environment,\u201d said Kamla, a teacher with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Nuseirat.
\nAll of these shelters are experiencing rapidly deteriorating conditions as a result of insufficient shelter materials, according to St\u00e9phane Dujarric, spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
\n\u201cNo shelter materials have entered Gaza since 1 March, before the Israeli authorities imposed a full blockade on aid and any other supplies for nearly 80 days,\u201d he said at a briefing on 19 June.
\n\u201cWhile some commodities have subsequently been allowed in small quantities, tents, timber, tarpaulins and any other shelter items remain prohibited.\u201d
\nThe UN and its partners have 980,000 shelter items prepared to dispatch into Gaza once authorization is granted by the Israeli authorities.
\nSince the beginning of the violence in Gaza, UNRWA has continued to work tirelessly to provide displaced and injured Palestinians with many types of support.
\n\u201cDespite all this, the eyes and hopes of our community remain fixed on us. UNRWA staff are not merely service providers. In the eyes of people in Gaza, we are pillars of resilience, lifelines of stability and symbols of hope,\u201d said Hussein, an UNRWA worker in Gaza City.
\nBut as fuel shortages continue and only small amounts of humanitarian aid \u2014 food, medicine, shelter materials \u2014 trickle through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the job of UNRWA workers and other humanitarians in Gaza is increasingly untenable.
\n\u201cWe have lost all the tools needed to work, so we have had to adapt,\u201d said Neven, a psychosocial UNRWA worker in Khan Younis.
\nDspite their best efforts, the bombardment and devastation of Gaza continues with children going hungry and some even expressing suicidal thoughts.
\n\u201cI told my daughter her deceased father is safe, eating and drinking with God,\u201d one mother said. \u201cNow, she cries every day and says, \u2018I\u2019m hungry and want to go to my father because he has food to feed us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 : Most families in the Gaza Strip are surviving on one meal a day and one-third go entire days without eating as a result of Israel\u2019s continued bombardment of the enclave, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and partners. […]<\/p>\n
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