The amount of food and humanitarian aid getting to the civilian population in Gaza remains “minuscule”, the head of medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said.
The flow of vital aid into the Palestinian enclave was still being “throttled, if not blocked outright” by Israel, according to Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of MSF, whose teams of medics are operating in Gaza.
His comments were made just before health officials in Gaza confirmed that at least 34 Palestinians were shot dead on Monday in areas near food distribution centres in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The toll was the deadliest yet in the near-daily shootings that have taken place as thousands of Palestinians move through Israeli military-controlled areas to reach the food centres run by a private contractor, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Two witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire early on Monday in an attempt to control the crowds. There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military. It has said in previous instances that troops fired warning shots at what it calls suspects approaching their positions.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels, Mr Lockyear said Israel had “weaponised” the distribution of humanitarian supplies in Gaza, which has been devastated by 20 months of war.
Israel’s controversial new system of distributing aid, using the US-backed GHF, seemed to be a “cynical ploy to feign compliance with international humanitarian law”, he said.
“In practice it uses aid as a tool to forcibly displace people as part of what seems to be a broader strategy to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip,” he said.
The GHF began distributing food packages after a blockade by Israel that stopped aid getting into Gaza for nearly three months, which drew international condemnation.
The new system of aid delivery has been roundly criticised by humanitarian groups. Scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in near-daily shootings, as people try to reach the food distribution points.
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The amount of aid currently getting to the people of Gaza remained “minuscule”, Mr Lockyear said. Supplies of fuel in particular were running low, which he said would make it challenging for hospitals to continue to function.
“Aid is a legal obligation, not a bargaining chip, and withholding it amounts to collective punishment,” he said.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, called on European governments to exert more pressure on Israel, to stop the “carnage” in Gaza.
“For more than 20 months now, relentless bombardment and siege by Israeli forces have inflicted a punishing campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, turning this narrow strip of ground into a graveyard of shattered hospitals, mass graves and destroyed neighbourhoods,” Mr Lockyear said.
MSF teams of medics working in Gaza had described the conditions as worse than hell on Earth, he said.
Nearly 55,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s invasion of Gaza, according to health authorities in Gaza. The invasion followed the October 7th, 2023 attacks of southern Israel by Hamas militants.
Omar Ebeid, an MSF emergency co-ordinator on the ground, who returned from the Gaza Strip 10 days ago, said medical staff were seeing a significant increase in cases of malnutrition.
“The entire population is hungry and they are rationing food,” he said.
Virginia Moneti, a doctor who also recently returned from Gaza, said basic supplies, such as stocks of medical dressings, were dwindling. Healthcare organisations were struggling to provide meals to patients in hospitals, she said.
Many people were living in tents on top of the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings, with no access to basic services, she said.
There was a fear the recent military escalation between Israel and Iran, where both countries were now launching missiles at the other, could pull focus away from the dire conditions in Gaza. “We’re concerned eyes could be taken off what is an ongoing and daily horror in Gaza,” Mr Lockyear said.
