Israel’s siege of Gaza has created what aid officials are referring to as “man-made starvation”, with the territory facing the threat of mass deaths from famine in the coming weeks. Children are already dying from hunger.
As part of its devastating war strategy against Hamas, Israel has restricted shipments of food and medicine to just a fraction of what Palestinian civilians need to survive.
The crisis is an artificially created one. Gaza, population roughly 2.3 million, is not geographically isolated. The small strip of land on the eastern Mediterranean coast served as a well-connected port for centuries, linking Asia with Europe.
“Starvation is used as a weapon of war,” the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said this week. “Israel is provoking famine.”
Gaza used to have multiple land border crossings, but only two remain open – Rafah and Kerem Shalom. Israel ripped up the strip’s only international airport 20 years ago, and years of blockade and isolation means Gaza has no capacity for big ships to dock.
Aid arriving by road
The easiest, fastest and most obvious way for aid to enter would be by road. Israel controls several land routes into Gaza that could be used to get more than enough food and supplies in.
Israel says it needs to inspect every shipment to make sure no cargo can be used to the benefit of its Hamas enemies. Even trucks travelling from Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel, are inspected by Israeli forces.
Aid officials criticise the slow and often arbitrary inspection process, which in practice blocks aid, with trucks waiting weeks for approvals. The onerous Israeli system means humanitarian convoys travelling from Egypt and Jordan have to take circuitous routes.
The few that get into Gaza need to drive over destroyed roads and avoid hijacking by criminal or militant groups operating in a near-anarchic situation that has resulted from the war. Israeli forces have also attacked aid convoys and bombed warehouses inside Gaza.
Israeli authorities turn back some aid deliveries at the border because of items they claim to be of dual use, meaning they can be used for civilian but also military purposes, such as for making explosives.
There is no official public list of what Israel considers dual-use items, and some items may be blocked at certain points and then let in later, making it impossible for aid organisation to plan a smooth delivery of aid.
Médecins Sans Frontières said it had “consistently been denied the import of power generators, water purifiers, solar panels and other medical equipment”. And a UK aid shipment containing 2,500 solar lanterns and 1,350 water filters was rejected.
Philippe Lazzarini, of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has said one aid truck was turned back “because it had scissors used in children’s medical kits”.
Aid arriving by air
Delivering aid by air to Gaza is not possible as Israel destroyed the strip’s international airport two decades ago.
However, after failing to persuade Israel to allow sufficient aid into Gaza by land, the US and other countries such as Jordan, France and Germany have gained permission to use aid drops.
The highly expensive method can deliver between one and three truckloads, depending on the aircraft used, with pallets being pushed out the back and landing via parachute. Aid groups point out that once the aid is on the ground, the first people to get to it will often be the strongest, meaning many vulnerable people will lose out.
People are desperate and starving – aid officials say Gaza has no functioning economy due to the war and years of blockade. Prices have soared, with reports of bags of sugar priced at $20 and nappies at over $50.
Aid arriving by sea
Israel has maintained a naval blockade for years, preventing ships from arriving. However, efforts this month to get aid to Gaza’s shores saw the first maritime aid shipment of the war.
A Spanish ship departed from Cyprus, the nearest EU country to Gaza, and delivered 200 tonnes of food. Other ships are expected to follow, although Gaza does not have a properly functioning port, which severely limits the effort.
US forces plan to build a temporary dock on the shoreline to allow delivery of humanitarian aid on a larger scale. But it will be weeks before it is operational.
Palestinians in Gaza have never had a commercial cargo seaport, and their only access out to sea is through a small fishing port in Gaza City that is about 5 metres deep. The depth needed for a standard cargo ship is about 12 metres. A proposal exists for a new port to be built in southern Gaza with a jetty that could accommodate smaller vessels that could dock in a depth of 8-10 metres.
Israel agreed to the construction of a deeper commercial seaport in the 1990s but its forces destroyed early construction work during the early 2000s Palestinian uprising. Years later, negotiations restarted for the construction of a new seaport, but these were abandoned in 2007 when Hamas took power.
Alarm over the prospect of famine in Gaza has increased in recent weeks. On Monday the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, regarded as the international gold standard in assessing food crises, said northern Gaza faced imminent famine and that the rest of the territory was also at risk.
