Gaza is in critical need of food. So are the humanitarian workers

The situation in Gaza has deteriorated to the point that even medical professionals and aid workers are at risk of starvation and death, according to Doctors Without Borders. The organization said Wednesday, July 23, that an Israel- and U.S.-backed nonprofit, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is actively preventing access to necessary supplies.

Doctors Without Borders joined a host of organizations across the globe that are denouncing the nonprofit. Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF, is also asking the Israeli government to open all land crossings into the Palestinian territory.

In a Wednesday statement, MSF said its staff and patients in Gaza have struggled to survive since the May launch of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Instead of increasing the distribution of food, supplies and other necessary aid, the foundation allegedly has disrupted assistance, and people seeking help have been killed.

People in Gaza and volunteers would use community kitchens to access food, but Caroline Willemen, an MSF project coordinator, said Israel is “deliberately starving” people by blocking aid. She added that it’s a daily concern if hospital patients or medical staff can eat.

“In the facilities where there is still food available for patients, it is only a few days’ worth of basic goods, without the range of nutrients necessary for recovery or healing,” she said through a spokesperson.

A Gaza Humanitarian Foundation spokesperson told Straight Arrow News by email that claims that it has disrupted aid are “ridiculous” and that it’s the only organization transporting relief into Gaza. The group says it has delivered more than 89 million meals in less than two months.

“The UN and other humanitarian organizations are having nearly all of their aid looted,” the spokesperson wrote. “The UN has 950 trucks in Gaza near the border loaded with aid but just sitting there and rotting.”

The World Health Organization said on Monday, July 21, that its warehouse in Deir al Balah was damaged in an attack and later looted by “desperate crowds.” The WHO is the leading health organization for the United Nations and said the majority of medical supplies in Gaza are depleted.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation shared Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories’ X video where the government agency claimed truckloads of flour, baby food and other necessities are sitting idle inside Gaza. The agency said international charities are contributing to the shortages by collecting less food.

Nonprofits demand release of aid 

Earlier in July, more than 100 nonprofits signed letters calling for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to be dismantled and for Israel to open more ports of entry for humanitarian relief. They said people in Gaza have risked being shot while trying to get aid since the foundation started controlling relief entering the Gaza Strip.

At least 32 people were killed while trying to get food on July 19, about 2 miles from one of the foundation’s distribution sites in Gaza. In total, more than 700 Palestinians have died near the sites.

Eyewitnesses, medical officials and civil defense representatives claim the Israel Defense Forces has shot people indiscriminately.

“People in #Gaza are being shot while seeking food,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine posted Tuesday, July 22, on its X account. “Our staff are fainting from hunger and exhaustion. All this is happening under the world’s watch.”

Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the U.S.-based American Jewish Committee have all disputed those claims and said Hamas is instead hiding its fighters in distribution lines, posing a risk to civilians and aid workers. 

An Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson issued a statement Wednesday alleging the organizations that are criticizing the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza are “serving the propaganda of Hamas.”

Journalists in danger from Israel-Hamas war

As aid workers face starvation, Agence France-Presse (AFP) is warning that its journalists are in grave danger while reporting on the war, The Associated Press reported. 

The Society of Journalists at AFP, the association representing the news service’s journalists, issued a statement Monday detailing the threat that a freelance photographer and reporter, identified as Bashar and Ahlam, face in the Gaza Strip. AFP management said Tuesday that its eight staff members and their families were evacuated from Gaza between January and April 2024. They are attempting to do the same for the remaining freelancers.

Bashar, 30, has lived in the ruins of his home in Gaza City since February with his mother and other family members. He said in a July 19 Facebook post that his body doesn’t have the strength to work anymore and has seen one of his brothers die of hunger. 

Ahlam said in the statement that she doesn’t know if she’ll return home alive. The biggest problem, she said, is a lack of food and water.

AFP was one of 200 media organizations across the globe that signed an open letter written by journalist advocacy organizations, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, asking Israel to reopen the Gaza Strip to foreign journalists and to protect Palestinian reporters.

“At this pivotal moment, with renewed military action and efforts to resume the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the letter said, “it is vital that Israel open Gaza’s borders for international journalists to be able to report freely and that Israel abides by its international obligations to protect journalists as civilians.”