Israel blocking delivery of medicines, lifesaving supplies to northern Gaza: UN

News Network

January 16, 2024

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says the Israeli regime is denying access to aid missions delivering medicine and fuel to the northern part of the Gaza Strip, amid a deepening humanitarian disaster in the besieged enclave.

OCHA reported that in the first two weeks of January, only 24 percent of planned aid missions to deliver food, medicine, water, and other lifesaving supplies have successfully reached their destinations north of Gaza.

“Around 95 percent of missions involving the allocation of fuel and medicines to water reservoirs, water wells, and health facilities in the north of Gaza have been denied access by Israeli authorities,” the report said.

“Lack of fuel for water, sanitation, and hygiene increases risks of health and environmental hazards,” it added, stressing that “lack of medicine has debilitated the functionality of the six partially functioning hospitals in the blockaded territory.”

OCHA also added that the aid missions that could not proceed include five planned missions to the Central Drug Store, four planned missions to Jabalia Medical Center, and eight planned missions to four critical reservoirs and water and waste pumps.

The UN agency further stated that since the start of the war, humanitarian missions have reported two instances where Israeli forces were detaining convoy members, as well as two instances of attacks on convoys.

“Reluctance by the regime to open main supply routes and facilitate timely crossing through the Israeli military-controlled checkpoint has exposed humanitarian actors to security risks,” it said.

According to the OCHA restrictions applied by the Israeli regime on the import of critical humanitarian equipment have heavily compromised the capacity of humanitarian agencies to operate safely and effectively.

Several UN agencies have also appealed for “faster” and “safer” aid access to Gaza as the population faces famine and the spread of disease.

In a joint statement, the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO) urged the opening of new entry routes, easing restrictions on the movement of humanitarian workers and guaranteeing the safety of people accessing and distributing aid.

The Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings are the only lifelines for Gaza’s 2.3 million people, who have been deprived of food, water, medicine, and fuel due to the Israeli blockade.

The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.

Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

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188 Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli army in Gaza

News Network

November 10,2024

The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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