Before today’s disastrous food riots, including shootings and deaths, Gaza’s Health Ministry had announced that the official (known and identified) count of children in Gaza who died of malnutrition is at least 60. They also counted 477 patients having died while awaiting permission to leave Gaza for treatment abroad. Additionally, 41% of kidney failure patients have died for lack of treatment and insufficient care. Further, 25 of 34 oxygen stations have been destroyed, leaving only 9 partially operational. All 7 MRI machines in Gaza have been destroyed, rendering the territory entirely without this critical diagnostic service. And only 49 of 110 hospital generators remain in operation and urgently require maintenance and fuel to stay running.
They also reported that, in the feeble opening yesterday of the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) food distribution, one person was shot dead and 48 were wounded. Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that troops only fired “warning shots” in the area of the distribution site as people flooded in, and that: “Control over the situation was established, food distribution operations are expected to continue as planned.” Could it get worse?
Today, 88 days after Israel’s complete food and medicine blockade of Gaza, a hungry crowd of Palestinians broke into a United Nations warehouse in central Gaza. AP reported: “Hordes of hungry people broke into” the World Food Program’s “warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, Central Gaza, in search of food supplies…. Initial reports indicate two people died and several were injured in the tragic incident.” Later reports put that figure at four deaths. WFP said that the tragedy reflects “alarming and deteriorating conditions on the ground” directly linked to the aid blockade.
The Times of Israel reported that an unnamed U.S. senior administration official downplayed yesterday’s chaos at the GHF Rafah distribution site, saying that it only lasted for about 20 minutes. GHF had stated that its American security contractors managing the Rafah distribution site “fell back” to allow a “small number of Gazans take aid safely and dissipate” before operations were able to continue as normal.
ToI then added: “Footage of the incident appeared far more chaotic, though, and nearby Israeli troops fired warning shots, sending people fleeing in panic after the looting was underway.... The length of Israel’s blockade also raised the chances for looting when food was finally allowed in, particularly when distributed.”
