CNN
—

A US deadline for Israel The agreement to improve the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza has expired, with the Biden administration believing that Israel is not blocking aid and therefore not violating US law governing foreign military assistance.

The State Department said that while changes were necessary, progress had been made so that there would be no disruption to U.S. arms supplies.

But the U.S. view stands in stark contrast to the grim situation on the ground, where much of the aid reaching Gaza is not distributed.

Civilians fleeing northern Gaza after weeks of intense Israeli military operations testify to a chronic lack of food and people dying of hunger, as humanitarian agencies warn the region is on the brink of famine.

“We haven’t received any help and no one has sent us food,” Umm Muhammad Al-At’out, 63, told CNN this week. “Our children died of hunger and thirst.”

His account of people dying of starvation was supported by others CNN spoke to in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military resumed ground operations in early October.

Abu Ahmed Subaih of Beit Lahiya told CNN he walked miles with his parents, who are in their 80s. “There is no food of any kind,” he said.

A woman who gave her name as Ghalia and said she was 83 years old told CNN: “We don’t know vegetables, meat or fruits anymore. We used to live on canned food, and now there’s no more canned food.

The stories of desperate civilians echo the words of the World Health Organization. warning last Friday, “there is a high probability that famine is imminent in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip.”

On Wednesday, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, told CNN that the hospital had received dozens of cases of malnutrition among children and adults.

Multiple factors have contributed to what humanitarian agencies are calling the worst moment in the humanitarian situation in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.

They include ongoing Israeli military operations, evacuation orders affecting hundreds of thousands of people, the breakdown of law and order that has led to the looting of aid convoys, the shortage of truck drivers and the refusal frequent passage for aid by the Israeli authorities.

Last month, the Biden administration gave Israel a 30 day deadline take specific measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including by boosting commercial traffic and ending the isolation of the north.

When the deadline expired, the US State Department said it had “not assessed that the Israelis were violating US law” and that they would not be subject to sanctions.

Much of the humanitarian community disagrees.

On Tuesday, eight humanitarian organizations said the Israeli government “not only failed to meet U.S. criteria indicating support for the humanitarian response, but at the same time took steps that significantly worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza.

One such group is Mercy Corps, whose director, Kate Phillips-Barrasso, told CNN that commercial traffic to Gaza has “completely stopped.”

“We’re really at a tipping point in the sense that this is turning into a catastrophic food insecurity situation,” Phillips-Barrasso said.

According to the World Food Program, the average number of trucks entering Gaza fell to just 58 per day in the second half of October, the lowest level since November last year.

Before the war started, around 500 commercial and humanitarian trucks arrived every day.

COGAT, the Israeli agency that approves aid shipments to Gaza, said on Saturday that 713 aid trucks had arrived in northern Gaza via the West Erez crossing since the beginning of October. But much of this aid remains at the crossing point.

The same applies to Kerem Shalom, which borders eastern Gaza. COGAT told CNN on Wednesday that 900 trucks were waiting near Kerem Shalom, on the Gaza side. maximum capacity. But he added that supplies from 122 trucks were collected on Tuesday.

Humanitarian organizations have often said that the distribution of food and water amid Israeli strikes, evacuation orders and the absence of safe corridors was almost impossible.

They also claim that Israeli authorities frequently delay or deny passage into Gaza. The World Food Program (WFP) told CNN on Tuesday that planned deliveries to areas of northern Gaza where the needs were most urgent had been refused by Israeli authorities.

Last week, the statement said, an approved convoy of ten food trucks was held up for two hours in Jabalya, “where some of the food was unloaded by people who surrounded the trucks.”

Food never reached the places where displaced Palestinians were sheltering, he added.

Joyce Msuya, acting U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that Israeli authorities were “blocking humanitarian aid from entering northern Gaza, where fighting is ongoing. continue and where around 75,000 people remain with dwindling supplies of water and food.”

CNN has asked the Israeli government for a response to Msuya’s comments.

A planned humanitarian convoy of 14 WFP trucks aimed to deliver supplies to Beit Hanoun and Indonesia’s Jabalya Hospital, but only two trucks reached their destination due to “delays in movement authorizations and congested routes “, OCHA said on Tuesday.

The Israeli army said on Tuesday that “hundreds of food packages and thousands of liters of water were delivered on Monday to distribution centers for the civilian population remaining in the Beit Hanoun area.”

But expeditions of this magnitude only scratch the surface of the immense need.

In addition to the lack of aid, 13 months of constant airstrikes have left Gaza’s agriculture and industry in ruins. Most enclaves farmland is to the north and along the eastern border with Israel, areas from which hundreds of thousands of people have fled.

The vast majority of Gazans have little or no work and cannot afford to buy food at inflated prices.

Saber Salem, a father of 10 now living in Gaza City, told CNN on Wednesday: “Maybe every two months we would get an aid voucher. There is nothing to buy and if available, the products are expensive.

Soup kitchens and communal bakeries are also closing or running out of supplies.

Amjad Al-Shawa – head of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) in Gaza – told CNN that soup kitchens that served 300,000 people a day with a hot meal now had closed, as were many bakeries.

There is also the question of profit. Dozens of people marched through a market in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Sunday, chanting: “We are the people, you traders are thieves!”

One young man told CNN: “They sell a kilo of sugar for 80 shekels instead of two.”

The pervasive desperation has led to frequent incidents of looting, both of warehouses and convoys. In late October, CNN filmed a desperate fight over bread at one of the few working bakeries.

But a large part of the looting is the work of organized gangs.

The president of the Gaza Transport Association, Nahd Shuheiber, said this week that there had been “an increase in thefts of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid” due to a lack of police.

Gaza police have often been the target of Israeli strikes because they are seen as associated with Hamas.

Shuheiber said “bandits” near the Kerem Shalom terminal had stolen the trucks, “creating a state of chaos in which we are unable to operate effectively.”

Barroso-Phillips of Mercy Corps told CNN that the needs in Gaza far exceed what extends beyond its borders.

“And as a result, we risk seeing people starve to death miles away from where food is available. »

Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed to this report.