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Gaza’s bakeries will run out flour for bread within a week, says the UN. Agencies cut food distributions to families in half. Markets are empty of most vegetables. Many auxiliary workers cannot move around as a result of Israeli bombing.
For four weeks, Israel ended all sources of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for the population of more than 2 million Palestinians. It is the longest blockade of Israel’s 17-month-old campaign against Hamas, with no sign that it ends.
Aid workers stretch out the supplies they have, but warn of a catastrophic surge in severe hunger and malnutrition. Eventually, food will run out completely if the flow of help is not restored, as the war has destroyed almost all local food production in Gaza.
Shorouq Shamlakh, a mother of three who collects her family’s monthly food at a UN distribution center in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. She and her children reduce their meals to make it last a month, she said. “If that closes, who else will provide our food?”
The World Food program said on Thursday that its flour for bakeries is just enough to continue to produce bread for 800,000 people per day until Tuesday and that the total food supplies will take a maximum of two weeks. As a ‘last resort’ as soon as all the other food is exhausted, it has emergency supplies of reinforced nutritional cookies for 415,000 people.
Fuel and medicine will take weeks longer before they hit zero. Hospitals ration antibiotics and painkillers. Help groups shift limited fuel supplies between multiple needs, all indispensable – trucks to provide assistance, bakeries to make bread, wells and desalination plants to produce water, hospitals to keep machines going.
“We have to make impossible choices. Everything is needed, ‘said Clémence Lagouardat, the leader of the Gaza Response to Oxfam International, and talking about Deir Al-Balah in Central Gaza Wednesday. “It is extremely difficult to prioritize.”
According to health officials, Israel resumed its military campaign on March 18 with the bombing that killed hundreds of Palestinians, mostly women and children. It hit humanitarian facilities, the UN says. New evacuation orders have forced more than 140,000 Palestinians to move again.
But Israel did not resume the system for auxiliary groups to inform the military of their movements to ensure that they were not hit by bombing, multiple auxiliary workers said. As a result, different groups of water deliveries, nutrition for malnourished children and other programs have stopped because it is not safe for teams to relocate.
Cogat, the Israeli military body responsible for coordinating help, said the system was discontinued during the ceasefire. Now it is implemented in some areas “in accordance with policy and operational assessments … based on the situation on the ground,” Cogat said without expanding.
Rising prices leave food unaffordable
During the 42 days of ceasefire that started in mid -January, aid groups rushed significant amounts of help. Food has also flocked in commercial markets.
But nothing has entered Gaza since Israel cut off the flow on March 2. Israel says the siege and renewed military campaign are aimed at forcing Hamas to accept changes in their agreed ceasefire and release more hostages.
Fresh products are now rare in Gaza’s markets. Meat, chicken, potatoes, yogurt, eggs and fruits are completely gone, says Palestinians.
Prices for all others have risen out of the Palestinians for many Palestinians. A kilo (2 pounds) onions can cost the $ 14 equivalent, a kilo of tomatoes for $ 6, if found. Cooking prices have focused as much as 30-fold, so families are back to wood to make fires.
“It’s completely insane,” says Abeer Al-Aasker, a teacher and mother of three in Gaza City. ‘No food, no services. … I believe the famine started again. ‘
Families are even more dependent on help
In the distribution center in Jabaliya, Rema Megat sorted through the food ration box for her family of 10: rice, lentils, a few cans of sardines, half a kilo sugar, two packets of powdered milk.
“It’s not enough to last a month,” she said. “This kilo rice will be used in one time.”
The UN has reduced the distribution of food rations in half to redirect more supplies to bakeries and free kitchens that produce prepared meals, says Ocha’s UN -Humanitarian Agency spokesman Olga Cherevko.
The number of prepared meals has grown by 25% to 940,000 meals a day, she said, and bakeries are taking out more bread. But it burns faster through supplies.
Once flour runs out soon, “no bread production will take place in a large part of Gaza,” says Gavin Kelleher, with the Norwegian Refugee Board.
Unrwa, the most important UN Agency for Palestinians, has only a few thousand food packs over and enough flour for a few days, says Sam Rose, the acting director of the Agency in Gaza.
Gazasop Kitchen, one of the most important public kitchens, can get no meat or many products, so they serve rice with canned vegetables, said co -founder Hani Almadhoun.
“There are many more people who show up, and they are more desperate. So people fight for food, ‘he said.
Israel shows no sign of the investment
The United States put Israel under pressure to assist in Gaza at the beginning of the war in October 2023, after Israel imposed a blockade of about two weeks. This time it supported Israel’s policy.
Real groups called it a ‘hunger policy’ that could be a war crime.
The Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said at a news conference on Monday that “Israel is acting in accordance with international law.”
He accused Hamas of stealing help, saying that Israel is not necessary to allow supplies when distracted to fighters.
He gave no indication of whether the siege could be lifted, but said Gaza had enough supplies, and pointed to the help that flowed during the ceasefire.
Hunger and hopelessness grow
Since his teams cannot coordinate movements with the military, the children save suspended programs that provide nutrition to malnourished children, says Rachael Cummings, the group’s humanitarian reaction animal in Gaza.
“We expect an increase in the rate of malnutrition,” she said. “Not just kids – adolescent girls, pregnant women.”
During the ceasefire, Save The Children was able to bring about 4,000 malnourished babies and children to normal weight, said Alexandra Saif, the group’s head of humanitarian policy.
About 300 malnourished patients per day come to the clinic in Deir Al-Balah, she said. The numbers plunged on some days – because patients are too scared of bombing, she said.
The multiple crises are intertwined. Malnutrition leaves children vulnerable to pneumonia, diarrhea and other diseases. A lack of clean water and overcrowded conditions just spread more diseases. Hospitals overwhelmed with the wounded cannot use their limited supplies on other patients.
Aid workers say not only Palestinians, but their own staff began to despair.
“The world has lost its compass,” Rose of Urwa said. “There’s just a feeling here that anything could happen, and it wouldn’t be enough for the world to say, it’s enough.”
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Magdy and Keath report from Cairo, El Deeb of Beirut. AP -Correspondents Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Julia Frankel and Sam Mednick in Jerusalem contributed.
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