Lack of food and medicine a catastrophe, say aid groups

ISRAELI SHELLING killed 14 members of two Palestinian families yesterday, raising the fatality toll to more than 90 since Israel began its ground offensive on Saturday. According to UN and Palestinian health authority sources, at least 535 Palestinians have been killed, of which an estimated 28 per cent were women and children, and 2,450 wounded, 40 per cent women and children, in the offensive Israel launched on December 27th.

Humanitarian agencies characterised the situation of the Strip's 1.5 million people as a "catastrophe" and an "extreme emergency". The two functioning crossings into Gaza, Israel's Karem Shalom, meant to handle a limited volume of goods, and Egypt's Rafah, a passenger terminal not equipped for massive shipments of goods, cannot cope with need.

Unless the conveyor belts at Israel's Karni crossing operate, the amounts of food and medicines required cannot enter Gaza. At present, Karem Shalom is blocked by lorries carrying wheat, which cannot be milled or baked into bread without power.

Christopher Gunness, spokesman of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said Israel was allowing only a few dozen lorry loads of supplies into the Strip. "That is not enough. In June 2007, there were 475 trucks a day."

While some fuel flowed through Nahal Oz yesterday, "one million Palestinians have no electricity.

"All hospitals are on emergency generators. Medical staff have been working round-the-clock and are exhausted. Hundreds of [injured] people are not being seen," said Mr Gunness.

Ambulances carrying the wounded to hospital and trucks transporting supplies from Rafah to Khan Younis and Gaza city are being caught up in the fighting, he said. UNRWA has opened 11 emergency shelters. "I think this constitutes a humanitarian crisis. This can't be allowed to go on," he said.

Save the Children staff in Gaza managed to deliver aid parcels to 6,000 people on Sunday but its stocks in the Strip have been exhausted and Israel has refused to allow more into Gaza.

The organisation's spokesman, Dominic Nutt said "the pipeline has been cut". He said "terrified" families were "fending for themselves".