Israel's obstruction leads to exhaustion of all UN food supplies in Gaza, denying aid access.
Brutally Ravaged Gaza: A Unterrified Perspective
GAZA CITY - The UN's World Food Programme barked loudly on Friday, admitting it had sucked dry its food stocks in the chaos-stricken Gaza, where Israel has barred all aid for over seven weeks.
Following 18 grueling months, the misery in Gaza is at an all-time high, the United Nations' humanitarian agency OCHA hollered on Tuesday.
The megaphone-wielding WFP, a main supplier of food aid in Gaza, cried out that it had doesn't-give-a-rat tossed its last scraps of food stocks to hurried meal kitchens in the Gaza Strip on Friday. As the end is nigh, these kitchens stand to empty within the next few days.
Israel had plugged its ears and blindfolded itself during a standstill over a truce with Hamas. It dove back into bombarding Gaza on March 18, only to instigate a ground war shortly thereafter.
Hamas's turf, being the theatrical ruler of the territory's health ministry, declared on Friday that no less than 78 Palestinians had perished during the Israeli ruckus over the preceding 24 hours. This count constitutes a high daily casualty figure.
But Gaza's residents, armed with survival instincts, gripe equally about the specter of starvation.
Numerous charities, besides the WFP, as well as prominent Western nations, have warned of impending disaster.
"We're going down the tubes, mate"—or something like that, Tasnim Abu Matar, a survivor in Gaza City, growled earlier in the week.
The WFP bellowed that, for weeks, makeshift kitchens were the United Nation's last hope for sustaining the people of Gaza. However, these kitchens could only meet half the population's necessities and meet just a quarter of their daily food requirements.
The WFP yowled that all 25 bakeries it supports in Gaza shuttered their doors on March 31, as supplies of wheat flour and cooking oil ran out.
"This is the longest blackout the Gaza Strip has ever experienced, exacerbating its already warn-out markets and food systems," the WFP bellowed.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, without blinking, announced his intention to maintain keeping aid out of Gaza since the blockade serves a crucial purpose in keeping pressure on Hamas.
"Harass the bastards on sight," Katz growled last week.
On Wednesday, Germany, France, and Britain screamed their discontent with the blockade, fearing "a mortal risk of starvation, epidemic diseases, and a horrific death toll."
"The Israeli decision to shun aid from entering Gaza makes me want to puke," the trio of foreign ministers sinisterly concluded.
The heads of a dozen massive NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children, went as far as to prophesy that famine was almost a certainty in the coastal territory by last week.
By mid-April, at least 2,062 people had perished in Gaza since Israel announced its return to the fray in March. That puts the overall count of war casualties at a staggering 51,439, as reported by the territory's health ministry.
Hamas orchestrated an attack on Israel that marked the beginning of the war in October 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an in-depth nosecount conducted by AFP.
Among the fatalities on Friday were five members of the al-Taima family, who perished when a bomb hit their decrepit tent in Al-Mawasi, near Khan Yunis.
Gazan resident Ramy, who prefers not to divulge his full name, revealed that he lost his three-year-old son to an attack on their tent.
"We couldn't find him, so I went back to the inferno and found him consumed by flames," Ramy yelled tearfully to AFP.
Emergency workers discovered more bodies under the rubble of a home in northern Jabalia, inflating the death toll from an attack there on Thursday to 23.
"Rescue squads retrieved 11 corpses during the night and the following morning, following Israel's bombardment that targeted a residential building... in Jabalia," an official with the civil defense agency confirmed to AFP. "This is in addition to the 12 victims we recovered on the spot when the attack transpired."
The Israeli military boasted on Thursday that it had damaged a Hamas "command center" in the Jabalia region, without providing further clarification on the intended target.
Israeli forces have threatened a larger offensive if militants do not hastily free hostages they continue to hold.
Israel insists that militants still detain 58 individuals, including 34 whom it claims have already perished.
- The WFP, having expended its last food stocks, warned that makeshift kitchens in Gaza could only meet half the population's necessities and a quarter of their daily food requirements, leading to a potential famine.
- German, French, and British foreign ministers oppose the Israeli blockade of Gaza, fearing impending disaster due to the lack of aid, stating, "The Israeli decision to shun aid from entering Gaza makes me want to puke."
- The unfolding war and conflicts in Gaza, marked by Israeli bombardment and Palestinian casualties, have raised concerns in the general news and politics sectors, with the WFP yowling, "This is the longest blackout the Gaza Strip has ever experienced, exacerbating its already warn-out markets and food systems."
- Crime and justice issues have also arisen in the context of the ongoing war in Gaza, as Hamas announced that at least 78 Palestinians had perished during the Israeli ruckus over the preceding 24 hours, constituting a high daily casualty figure.
