“While the world’s attention is elsewhere, people in Gaza today are being killed trying to reach food. The attempt to survive is being met with a death sentence.” So began the June 22 press briefing in Deir Al Balah, Gaza Strip with Jonathan Whittall, Head of the UN’s Office of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OCHA OPT).
His message was terse and direct. In the last month “since the total blockade was partially lifted,” at least 400 people have been killed while trying to get food. Whittall said that most of the “casualties have been shot or shelled trying to reach U.S.-Israeli distribution sites” which have been set up in “militarized zones.” “We see a chilling pattern of Israeli forces opening fire on crowds gathering to get food.” The IDF also fired on Palestinian crowds waiting for food “along routes to Gaza.” Days before his press briefing, Whitall said, “more than 60 people were killed and hundreds injured when a tank opened fire” on people waiting for trucks to arrive.
The UN official summarized: “Palestinian life and that which sustains it continues to be systematically dismantled before the world’s eyes…. There remains an abhorrent disregard for humanitarian law. People’s lives and dignity are under attack every day.” He insisted, “Everything I have described is entirely preventable. These are conditions created to kill. … We are seeing carnage … weaponized hunger … forced displacement…. All combined it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza.”
