Around thirty humanitarian aid trucks were able to enter the Gaza Strip on Sunday, where the situation is critical after a cellular network outage for almost 36 hours and the looting of a warehouse where essential goods were stored. On the front line: children – day by day, the number of them killed by bombs continues to rise.
What there is to know
The Israeli military said it struck 450 targets in the Gaza Strip and continues to deploy troops on the ground.
Around thirty humanitarian aid trucks were able to enter Gaza, where a UN warehouse containing basic foodstuffs was looted by people in distress on Saturday.
Around 1,400 Israelis were killed in the surprise Hamas attack on October 7 and more than 8,000 Gazans have lost their lives in bombings of the Gaza Strip since then, most of them women and minors.
Communications were restored to most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents on Sunday, after an Israeli bombardment described by residents as the heaviest of the war knocked out phone and internet service. , Friday night.
According to two American officials cited by The New York Timesthe United States suspects Israel of being behind this communications cut in the Gaza Strip.
The situation on the ground remains “unimaginable” and borders on a “humanitarian disaster,” says the general director of Doctors of the World (MdM) Canada, Nadja Pollaert.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
Palestinian children displaced in UN camp in southern Gaza Strip
Despite the arrival of a few trucks of humanitarian aid, they are far from sufficient, three weeks after the start of the war.
Yes, several governments have announced humanitarian aid, but how do you expect us to do it? [pour qu’elle se rende] if we are not able to enter or communicate with health centers?
Nadja Pollaert, executive director of Médecins du monde Canada
Since Friday, Médecins du monde has no longer been able to communicate with its team on site due to a lack of cellular network, adds Nadja Pollaert. The organization is calling for an immediate ceasefire and is concerned about a rapid deterioration in the health of Gazans without a rapid and constant supply of medicine, water and food.
Drink salt water
The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency services said nearby Israeli airstrikes had damaged parts of a hospital it runs in Gaza after receiving two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate. But “if they evacuate, we will not be able to help” the inhabitants of Gaza, worries Nadja Pollaert.
PHOTO JACK GUEZ, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Israeli strikes on the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday
During this time, some residents of the enclave began drinking salt water, for lack of anything better, she says, based on information obtained from colleagues on the ground.
“It is estimated that there are around 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza at the moment. However, a pregnant woman who has nutritional issues means high-risk pregnancies, low-weight babies and early deliveries. »
We know that there are babies who will die in the coming days because we are not able to save them.
Nadja Pollaert, executive director of Médecins du monde Canada
The conflict is particularly cruel for minors: 40% of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are aged 15 and under, says Nadja Pollaert.
The number of children killed in the Gaza Strip over the past three weeks exceeds the annual number of children killed in war zones each year since 2019, Save the Children said on Sunday.
More than 3,100 children are believed to have died in the Gaza Strip, not counting the 33 deaths in the West Bank and the 29 in Israel, according to the health ministries of the two territories.
PHOTO HATEM MOUSSA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Palestinian child injured in an Israeli strike is treated at Deir el-Balah hospital in the Gaza Strip.
“With another 1,000 children missing in Gaza and presumed buried under rubble, the death toll is likely much higher,” the organization added.
A looted warehouse
In another sign of the deterioration of living conditions in the enclave, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported on Sunday that some of its warehouses had been broken into by people desperate the day before.
According to a member of the agency, Thomas White, these burglaries are “a worrying sign that civil order is beginning to collapse after three weeks of war in Gaza.”
On Sunday, the head of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, visited the Rafah border crossing, between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, where international aid for Palestinian civilians is piling up.
PHOTO RONEN ZVULUN, REUTERS
Manna Torpiashvili mourns the loss of her 9-year-old daughter Tamar, who died of a heart attack when sirens warning of an imminent strike on Israel sounded.
“Preventing access to humanitarian aid” could constitute a “crime,” he told journalists on site. “In Rafah, I saw stranded trucks full of goods and humanitarian aid, far from the hungry mouths and wounds” of Gaza residents, he added.
Dissensions in the Israeli camp
At the same time, dissensions within the Israeli camp came to light on Sunday after the publication of a message from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the social network the attack of October 7.
Called to retract his statement by his political opponents, the Prime Minister withdrew his publication before apologizing and declaring that he was “wrong”, before adding that “all together, we will win”.
Meanwhile, Israeli tanks and infantry continued what Prime Minister Netanyahu called the “second stage” of the war sparked by Hamas’ initial attack on October 7.
Although the number of Israeli troops deployed in Gaza remains unknown at this time, Tea New York Times claims to have identified at least three places through which they entered, thanks to videos published by the Israeli army, in particular.
With Agence France-Presse, The New York Times, NBC, Haaretz And The Guardian