The dire situation in the besieged Gaza Strip has not seen any improvement but has rather become even worse, despite being two weeks since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling.
News of Israel ramping up its attacks on Rafah as it prepares to mount a ground offensive there has compounded the worry and dismay of displaced Palestinians.
International aid organisations have warned that any major operation in Rafah would exacerbate what is already a humanitarian catastrophe.
Humanitarian organization, Islamic Relief stated that since the ICJ ruling, “thousands more people have been killed and injured, and famine is becoming more likely every day as the Israeli siege continues to cut families off from food, healthcare and water.”
The group warned that Israel’s attack on Rafah “will have catastrophic consequences for civilians.”
Islamic Relief called on world leaders and governments to demand an “immediate ceasefire and implementation of the ICJ ruling.”
An Islamic Relief staff member in Gaza said, “Israel is starving us. We either get killed by bullets or starvation.”
“My children and I haven’t eaten fruit or vegetables for months, and people get killed when they try to meet aid trucks arriving from the UN,” the staff member added.
Separately, Bob Kitchen of the International Rescue Committee, said, “If they aren’t killed in the fighting, Palestinian children, women and men will be at risk of dying by starvation or disease.”
Kitchen added, “There will no longer be a single ‘safe’ area for Palestinians to go to.”
The government media office in the Gaza Strip holds the United States and Israel responsible for the famine in northern Gaza, saying it’s worsening day by day.
“We immediately demand the entry of a thousand trucks daily into northern Gaza until it recovers from the famine and its effects,” the office said in a statement.
The entire population in Gaza is in food crisis with at least 576,600 at catastrophic or starvation levels, according to UN figures.
James Elder, the spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told a news agency that the Gaza Strip has the worst levels of malnutrition of any place in the world.
“Gaza is now experiencing the worst level of malnutrition for children,” Elder said, speaking from Geneva.
“There is no safe area in Gaza and civilians must be provided with water and shelter. The [Israeli] restrictions imposed make it difficult for us to carry out our work in the Gaza Strip,” he added.
Moreover, UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell stressed that an attack on Rafah would mark “another devastating turn in a war” that has killed nearly 28,000 people.
She said that it could leave thousands more dead through violence or lack of essential services, and further disrupt humanitarian assistance.
“We need Gaza’s last remaining hospitals, shelters, markets and water systems to stay functional. Without them, hunger and disease will skyrocket, taking more child lives.”
Catherine Russell
More than half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people have fled to Rafah, heeding Israeli evacuation orders ahead of the military’s expanding ground offensive.
Pro-Israel Countries Told To Pressure It From Carrying Out Rafah Attack
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said that discouraging Israel from carrying out attacks on the southern city of Rafah falls primarily on countries that still believe in “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu says the offensive will continue and expand until “total victory” over Hamas.
Half of the Gaza Strip’s population are crammed into the border city, after waves of displaced Palestinians swelled its population from 300,000 before October 7 to 1.4 million.
The foreign ministry said in a statement, “In light of the continued killing of civilians, the entrenchment of their displacement, the prevention of adequate aid access, and the targeting of health and civilian centres, the world has begun to express deep concern about what a number of Israeli officials said regarding the start of the attack on the Rafah area, which has a high population density.”
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