Humanitarian groups in Gaza report that about 500 truckloads of aid must be delivered each day to meet Palestinians' most basic needs. Israel "has committed to facilitating" less than half that — 200 trucks — and over the past two weeks, deliveries have averaged only 62 trucks a day. On two separate days, only four trucks entered Gaza this week. Aid groups are predicting famine; some have already declared it.
Getting full complements of essential aid into the strip has been impossible since Israel's invasion began. But why the sudden plunge in even scant deliveries? Airstrikes on Gaza's civilian police force — that's the short answer. The Israeli military, claiming Gaza's police force includes Hamas "elements," has targeted and killed "as many as nine Palestinian police officers who guarded the aid convoys," reports The Times.
This, understandably, led other police officers to quit earlier this month. The absence of police protection then led to a free-for-all on trucks by starving civilians and criminal gangs. The latter and "the departure of police escorts has [made it] virtually impossible for the U.N. or anyone else ... to safely move assistance in Gaza," said David Satterfield, the U.S. Ambassador charged with overseeing humanitarian efforts.
An Israeli airstrike killed three police officers in Rafah on 10 Feb., according to eyewitnesses, and another eight were killed in an airstrike the week before, according to U.N. Relief and Works Agency Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini. (These reports were unverified.) In addition, truck drivers have been assaulted and shot at.
On another grim note, but one that took quite a turn, while driving and listening to NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday evening I heard a report that caused me to wonder (again) how Palestinians in Gaza manage to keep going. The story centered on a young Palestinian gentleman who had been known for his light-hearted social-media accounts of living in Gaza — prewar. That changed after 7 Oct., as he and his family evacuated their home in Gaza City, and continued evacuating periodically, all the way to Rafah.
While in the city, his mother let him know she had procured a chicken for a family dinner the next day. After meatless months, this would be a grand feast, and she wanted him to come. Excited, he agreed. That night he was awakened by a series of Israeli airstrikes on Rafah. He rushed to the spot where his displaced family had been staying.
There he was met by countless body bags. Unable to find his family members alive, he began searching the bags. He identified his father's body from a finger. His head was missing; it had been blown off. He also found the bodies of his mother and brother, and his little sister only by an earring she always wore.
His grief is immense, of course, yet he's chosen to continue posting upbeat messages on social media, anything he can think of to help his fellow Palestinians get through another day — another day in the starving, blood-soaked Gaza Strip. Somehow he found in himself — what should it be called? the courage? the will? — the strength, in any case, to not only keep going, but to do so with a heart as big as his homeland. I was in awe.
Comments