How much food does Israel send to northern Gaza?

Since Israel launched a new military offensive into northern Gaza 12 days ago, humanitarian groups say almost no aid has entered the area. Israel’s own statistics show aid deliveries across Gaza have dropped significantly compared with the same period in September.

That sparked accusations that the Israeli military was blocking food aid deliveries to starve Hamas fighters.

Lack of food prompted senior UN officials to warn northern Gaza that “survival supplies are running out”, with local civilians telling the BBC the situation was unsustainable.

Joyce Msuya, acting UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, said on Monday that Israel was blocking all food aid from entering northern Gaza from October 2 to 15.

She said a “modest” amount of aid had been allowed into the territory on Monday, but warned that insufficient fuel supplies would force bakeries to close within days.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that his government is deliberately preventing food from reaching northern Gaza.

But the United States has warned its allies to urgently increase humanitarian access or risk having some military aid cut off, and now says it is monitoring Israel’s actions in northern Gaza to ensure it does not pursue a “starvation policy.”

On Thursday, a UN-backed assessment warned that “the risk of famine remains throughout the Gaza Strip”, adding: “Given the recent surge in hostilities, there are growing concerns that this worst-case scenario could become a reality.”

Cogat, the Israeli military agency that manages Gaza crossings, said a total of 5,840 tons of food entered Gaza in the first 12 days of October, compared with September’s total of 75,898 tons.

The United Nations said no aid had entered Gaza in the two weeks before last Sunday, when the United States warned its allies in a letter to urgently increase humanitarian access or risk having some military aid cut off.

The United Nations said in its own statistics that the number of trucks entering Gaza was the lowest since the war began a year ago.

Briefing the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Ms Msuya said Israel had facilitated one of 54 attempts to deliver aid through the Rashid checkpoint in the first two weeks of October.

Four other efforts were stymied but eventually happened, she added. Ms Msuya said that while existing stocks in northern Gaza were continuing to be distributed, supplies were “dwindling rapidly”.

Meanwhile, the World Food Program (WFP) told the Financial Times on Tuesday that if Israel does not immediately facilitate fresh food in northern Gaza, it will run out of food aid available for distribution within a week and a half.

WFP Director for the Palestinian Territories Antoine Renard also told media that his field teams only have a week’s supply of flour left.

Kogat said 50 trucks carrying aid entered the northern part of the strip on Wednesday.

George Petropoulos, director of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, told the BBC that when aid does enter Gaza through Israeli checkpoints, aid organizations often lack the ability to distribute it effectively on the other side. He noted that while 50 truckloads of aid were allowed into Gaza on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was only allowed to receive 30 of them.

Twelve days ago, the Israel Defense Forces launched a new round of offensive against Hamas in the north. The group said it was trying to prevent its militants from regrouping in the area.

Military officials issued evacuation orders affecting about 400,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip, requiring them to move south. But many refuse to leave, exhausted by continued displacement and fearful of traveling to a place where supplies will not be available.

Israeli forces have surrounded and bombarded the Jabaliya area, a refugee camp that has become a densely populated urban area north of Gaza City.

Israel insists there is no starvation policy in northern Gaza, but some have speculated that the drop in humanitarian supplies is a sign that what Israeli media has dubbed “the General’s plan” is being implemented.

Retired Major General Jorah Eiland recently told the BBC that civilians should be evacuated from northern Gaza while remaining Hamas fighters remain in the area Choose “surrender or starve”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper that “the accusation that we are pursuing a policy of deliberately starving our people is completely baseless”.

He previously told the United Nations that Israel was facilitating “more than 3,000 calories a day for every man, woman and child in Gaza.”

People in northern Gaza told the BBC that food and water supplies had dropped sharply in recent days.

Awad Hassan Ashour from Jabaliya said residents in his area receive little food and water is scarce

“Every two or three days, they would bring us a meal, either lunch or breakfast,” he said.

Yousef Qarmout, a displaced person in Jabaliya, told the BBC that shortages of food and water made it “difficult to survive” for people living in the area.

What little food remains is prohibitively expensive, he said.

“Life in northern Gaza is becoming increasingly untenable, there is no food at all,” he said.

“We also suffer from high prices – take a can of beans for example. It costs 20 shekels [£4; $5.30]this is too much for me because I don’t work and neither do my kids. None of us have any source of income.

Sayab Zaid said it was almost impossible to obtain meat or fresh vegetables, noting that only a few people could afford these products. Instead, his family subsisted mainly on bread, he said.

“Getting bread for us is a very big challenge and you can lose your life trying to get bread,” he said.

Petropoulos said the problem was exacerbated by organized crime gangs operating in Gaza, with many aid drivers reporting being robbed while transporting food and shelter items.

“I’m seeing shelters in some homes being winterized with plastic sheeting. You can see them starting to be put on top of the plastic boxes that people live in,” he told the BBC.

“The problem is we should be giving it away for free to people who need it. But they’re being robbed and sold to them, and now instead of giving plastic sheeting away for free, so at least you have a waterproof roof when it rains you’re still in debt.

“We’re seeing equipment and supplies that have been taken away being sold back to people who have been pushed into extreme poverty, and the damage done is huge.”

Israel has long accused Hamas of hijacking and stealing aid, a charge the group denies.

The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakri, accused Israel of pursuing a policy of deliberate starvation in Gaza in an interview with the BBC News Hour on Monday.

“We’ve seen the effects of their starvation campaigns with high mortality rates – people dying not just of hunger but of dehydration and disease that comes with it,” he said.

“Israel has told us what it is doing, it has done it and we are seeing the results.”

Some 1.84 million people are experiencing severe acute food insecurity, with 664,000 facing “emergency” levels of hunger and nearly 133,000 facing “catastrophic” hunger, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released on Thursday said. level.

The final figure was three-quarters lower than when it was last reported in June – a drop the IPC attributed to a temporary surge in humanitarian aid and commercial supplies between May and August.

However, the number of people facing “catastrophic” hunger is expected to nearly triple in the coming months, the IPC said, as aid deliveries and food supplies drop sharply since September.

Responding to the report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Humanitarian aid for life.

Washington’s growing concern over the situation has prompted senior officials to warn that Israel has 30 days to step up humanitarian access to Gaza or risk having some military aid cut off.

The U.S. letter to the Israeli government was signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The pair said they wrote to “underscore the U.S. government’s deep concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and seek urgent and sustained action from your government this month to reverse this trend.”

But EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell dismissed the U.S. warning.

“The United States has been saying to Israel that they must improve humanitarian support to Gaza, but they have delayed it for a month,” he told reporters in Brussels.

“At the current rate of deaths, that’s a month’s delay. There are too many people.”