More than a million people have fled Rafah, UNRWA says (File)
Paris:
Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza live in “terrible” conditions, with children sometimes going an entire day without food and thousands sharing the same bathroom, Oxfam warned on Tuesday.
In recent weeks, deadly Israeli bombings and fighting have occurred in the Rafah area at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, close to the Egyptian border, again displacing those who fled there in search of safety.
More than a million people have fled Rafah for other areas, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Oxfam said more than two-thirds of Gaza’s population is estimated to be crammed into less than a fifth of the besieged territory.
“Despite Israeli assurances that full support would be provided to people fleeing, most of Gaza has been deprived of humanitarian aid as famine looms,” the aid agency said.
“A food survey carried out by humanitarian agencies in May revealed that 85 percent of children had not eaten for an entire day, at least once in the three days prior to the survey,” he added.
Since Israeli troops launched their ground attack on Rafah on May 6, an average of eight aid trucks have entered per day, Oxfam said, citing UN data.
Although hundreds of commercial food trucks are estimated to enter daily, the products on board include non-nutritious energy drinks, chocolate and cookies, and are often very expensive, he added.
“Once famine is declared, it will be too late,” said Oxfam Middle East and North Africa director Sally Abi Khalil.
“Storing tons of food for a malnourished population while drinking caffeinated drinks and chocolate is disgusting.”
In an interview with French television last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected allegations of famine in Gaza, saying everything had been done to prevent famine.
Gazans ate 3,200 calories a day, or 1,000 more than the daily requirement, he said.
‘Forced to trust the sea’
Oxfam said families in some parts of southern Gaza, such as the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, designated a “humanitarian zone” by the Israeli army, have almost no water or sanitation services.
“Living conditions are so appalling that in Al-Mawasi there are just 121 latrines for more than 500,000 people – or 4,130 people who have to share each bathroom,” Oxfam said.
Meera, an Oxfam worker in Al-Mawasi who has been displaced seven times since October, described conditions there as “unbearable”.
“There is no access to clean water and people are forced to depend on the sea,” she said.
On Monday, sewage flooded a displaced people’s camp in Khan Yunis after a wastewater pipe burst, an AFP reporter said, with some trying to remove dirt from their tents using plastic bottles.
The war was triggered by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 who the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed at least 36,550 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-administered territory.
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