The Israeli-made Disaster in Gaza Is Far From Over – Let All Aid in Before Palestinians Starve
Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in the most difficult conditions, in tents that are wearing out and without electricity, sewerage or running water. The rest of the population lives in partially destroyed buildings, in a completely devastated territory, without infrastructure and without hope
Aid shipments into the Gaza Strip have plunged by 80 percent since the start of the war with Iran, according to figures from the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat.
Only 590 trucks carrying aid entered Gaza during the war's first week, compared to an average of about 4,200 trucks a week before the war began. In the war's second week, 1,137 trucks entered, while this week, as of Tuesday evening, fewer than 400 did.
This decline in the scale of humanitarian aid is already being felt on the ground, with sharp increases in food prices and a shortage of medical supplies and medicines in hospitals.
The humanitarian disaster that Israel inflicted on Gaza is far from over. Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in the most difficult conditions, in tents that are wearing out and without electricity, sewerage or running water. The rest of the population lives in partially destroyed buildings, in a completely devastated territory, without infrastructure and without hope.
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Cold, rainy weather is forecast to return within days; parents will once again be helpless and unable to keep their children dry. Furthermore, thousands of children and adults in Gaza need urgent medical evacuation to save their lives.
Medical evacuations from Gaza have been suspended since the war began, on February 28; Israel still refuses to allow residents to leave Gaza for lifesaving treatment in Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, even though they are the only ones capable of saving large numbers of patients and filling the gap caused by the destruction of the health system in the Strip.
And as if that weren't enough, the Israel Defense Forces continues to attack and kill terrorists or suspected terrorists almost daily, while inflicting intolerable harm on noncombatants. Since the cease-fire went into effect on October 11, a total of 667 people have been killed and 1,814 wounded by IDF fire in Gaza.
Beyond the obvious moral consideration – not to stand idly by in the face of death and the suffering of 2 million innocent people – Israel has nothing to gain from the persistence of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Its name has already been stained with terms like "genocide" and "crimes against humanity."
An arrest warrant has been issued against our prime minister for alleged war crimes. Israel's academia and economy are already being boycotted, and many Israelis feel they no longer recognize their country on account of how we have treated Gaza's civilians.
The government must immediately instruct the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories to remove all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and to stop creating difficulties for the international organizations that are trying to help. Urgent action must be taken to rebuild Gaza's infrastructure and to initiate negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and the Arab world toward genuine, long-term reconstruction.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.