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UNRWA (file) said more than 1 million people have fled Rafah
Paris:
Oxfam warned on Tuesday that Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza were living in “appalling” conditions, with children sometimes going whole days without food and thousands sharing the same toilet.
Deadly Israeli bombardment and fighting near the Egyptian border have erupted in the Gaza Strip’s far southern Rafah region in recent weeks, once again displacing those who fled there in search of safety.
According to UNRWA, the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency, more than 1 million people have been displaced from Rafah to other areas.
More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population is estimated to be less than a fifth of the encircled area, Oxfam said.
“Despite Israeli assurances that full assistance will be provided for the displaced people, much of Gaza has been cut off from humanitarian aid, as famine approaches an inch,” the aid agency said.
“A food survey by aid agencies in May found that 85 percent of children did not eat a full meal at least once in three days prior to the survey,” she added.
Oxfam, citing UN figures, said that since Israeli troops began their ground offensive on Rafah on May 6, an average of eight aid trucks have entered every day.
He added that while an estimated hundreds of commercial food trucks are entering daily, the goods on board include non-nutritious energy drinks, chocolates and cookies, and are often very expensive.
By the time a famine is declared, it will be too late, said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director.
“It’s sickening for a malnourished population to eat tons of food while wading through caffeinated drinks and chocolate.”
In an interview with French television last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected accusations of food shortages in Gaza, saying that everything had been done to avoid famine.
Gazans were consuming 3,200 calories per day, or 1,000 more than the daily requirement, he said.
‘Forced to depend on the sea’
Oxfam said families in parts of southern Gaza, such as the coastal area of al-Mawasi, which the Israeli military has designated a “humanitarian zone”, barely have access to water or sanitation services.
“Living conditions are so appalling that in Almawasi, there are only 121 latrines for more than 500,000 people — or 4,130 people have to share each toilet,” Oxfam said.
Meera, an Oxfam staff member in Almawasi who has been displaced seven times since October, described the conditions there as “unbearable”.
He said that there is no access to clean water and people are forced to depend on the sea.
On Monday, a displaced persons camp in Khan Yunis was flooded with sewage water after a sewage pipe burst, an AFP reporter said.
The war began with a surprise attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, which killed 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to AFP figures based on Israeli official figures. .
The militants also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, of which 41 have been killed, according to the military.
Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 36,550 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
