ActionAid Continues Supporting its local Partners in Distributing Food assistance and Fresh Vegetables to Displaced families in Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip – Palestine - In spite of the ongoing War against Gaza, from land, air, and sea, targeting humanitarian workers and limitations imposed on entry of humanitarian aid to Gaz, ActionAid Palestine continue supporting food and fresh vegetables distribution  through its local partners to provide displaced families with hot meals and fresh produce . ActionAid’s partner, the Palestinian Development Women Studies Association (PDWSA) has provided vegetables baskets to displaced families in Khan Younis. This emergency response aimed to mitigate the suffering of the displaced families and fulfil their food needs by providing them with fresh vegetables amid the existence of catastrophic levels of hunger affecting all residents of Gaza.    

Families all over Gaza are facing relentless attacks, forced displacement, and now starvation and thirst. Nearly all of Gaza’s population is struggling with food shortages and hunger, and half a million people are now facing starvation according to a new report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). The report mentioned that more than half of households in Gaza have had to exchange clothes and other goods for money to buy food. A third have resorted to picking up trash to sell. The report documented that many in Gaza go entire days and nights without eating.  The IPC report says more than 340,000 Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing the most severe form of acute food insecurity and starvation, or what is classified as “catastrophe,” a category just short of famine. That number is expected to climb to 495,000 people over the coming three months.

Due to worsening conditions since May in southern and central Gaza, there is a high risk of famine now across all of Gaza. Humanitarian aid has slowed into Gaza since Israel’s assault on the southern city of Rafah. In early May, Israeli tanks effectively shut the Gaza border in Rafah with Egypt, where aid and fuel had been entering. Continuous bombing and destruction of roads in Gaza make  it dangerous and difficult for aid organizations to reach their warehouses  or collect aid that entered Gaza at the southern crossing with Israel. Moreover, the renewed hostilities and repeated displacement continue to erode people’s ability to cope and access humanitarian assistance. To prevent famine, people need to be able to have access to the nutrients found in fresh food, clean water and functioning hospitals. Currently, people are largely living off canned food and bread.

People are enduring subhuman conditions, resorting to desperate measures like boiling weeds, eating animal feed, and exchanging clothes for money to stave off hunger and keep their children alive. The population cannot endure these hardships any longer. The toll of military action has been far too high. It’s not just food that’s lacking in Gaza. Hospitals, bakeries, ambulances and telecommunications systems are all running on limited fuel due to unstable supplies entering Gaza. The amount of medical aid crossing into Gaza is also insufficient, according to the World Health Organization. 

Background Information

ActionAid in Palestine (AAP) is a part of global federation working for social justice and gender equality and eradicate poverty in more than 45 countries around the world. AAP started its work in Palestine in 2007 to strengthen the resilience of Palestinian People as ActionAid believes that they should enjoy their rights to freedom, justice and self-determination. AAP implements a number of programs through its engagement with communities and women and youth groups seeking to empower them and enhance their influential civil and political participation to understand their rights and undertake collective activism to address the protracted rights violations resulting from the prolonged occupation of Palestine. AAP works simultaneously to enhance their leadership capacity and knowledge to practice their citizenship in holding authorities and other duty bearers to account.

For more information, please contact

Riham Jafari

Coordinator of Advocacy and Communication in Palestine

Mobile:

+972 (0) 595242890

Email: Riham.Jafari@actionaid.org