Dozens of people have reportedly been killed and injured by Israeli forces at militarised aid distribution sites in Gaza during the first week of aid delivery under the militarised model, including at sites in Rafah and Wadi Gaza overnight. Gaza’s starving population has been directed to the sites in order to receive food parcels that include staple items but lack baby formula and the foods required to help a malnourished child survive.
Save the Children’s Middle East North Africa and Eastern Europe Regional Director Ahmad Alhendawi said:
"We have warned of the risks of corralling people at militarised distribution points in a war where civilians and civilian sites have been repeatedly targeted. Now, less than a week into this new militarised model of aid delivery, Israeli forces have directed starving people to a site with the promise of insufficient food, with reports they then opened fire. This is aid to which people are legally entitled - aid that has been systematically denied. This is a blatant and shocking disregard of international humanitarian law.
“We don’t yet know if children were among the people reportedly killed and injured. Israeli forces have reportedly blocked ambulances from reaching attack sites to assess and treat the wounded. But knowing that those trying to collect aid from these points are primarily men, we do know that among the people killed were fathers and brothers – people who represent a critical sense of safety to the children in their lives. Such loss drastically compounds nearly two years of severe mental harm that children in Gaza have faced on top of the devastating mental health impacts of the life-limiting blockade that has been imposed on Gaza by the Government of Israel for nearly 18 years.
“Aid is a right, and humanitarian organisations know how to deliver it – but we’re not being allowed to do it. Humanitarian aid delivery is determined by needs, independent of political or military goals. What we’re seeing instead through this militarised model is the weaponisation of aid against a starving population.
“Protection is also a right, and a legal obligation for a party to the conflict, an Occupying Power, and the international community to ensure. States have a choice. The decisions they have made so far and the lives those decisions have cost can’t be undone. But every day brings the opportunity to make a different choice. The world needs to wake up and collectively, decisively make the right decision – to uphold international law and protect and ensure humanitarian assistance for the children and families who have managed to survive the unimaginable, the nearly unliveable, the unforgiveable, so far.”
ENDS
SPOKESPEOPLE AVAILABLE IN GAZA.
MEDIA CONTACT: Mala Darmadi on 0425 562 113 or media.team@savethechildren.org.au.