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Alameen Templeton
More starvation restrictions on food supplies to Gaza have cut off a vital route from Jordan via Israel for the last two weeks, dragging supplies down to their lowest level in seven months, aid organisations say.
The Zionists are demanding aid organisations sign forms accepting liability for any false information about any shipment.
Reuters reports relief agencies are disputing the new rule, announced mid-August, because they fear third parties could tamper with shipments they’ve signed surety for.
As a result, shipments have not been getting through the Jordan route – a key, Gaza supply channel — for two weeks. The dispute has not affected shipments via Cyprus and Egypt, the sources said.
Throttling vital supplies
In a parallel move, the Zionists are also refusing to allow normal, commercial supplies for sale to go into Gaza, claiming Hamas could be benefiting from that trade by charging taxes on it, sources told Reuters.
UN and Israeli government data show September supplies of food and aid sank to their lowest in seven months.
Israeli’s military unit, Cogat, which controls aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, confirmed no UN-chartered convoy has arrived from Jordan since September 19, but a spokesperson denied Israel was blocking goods.
The twin restrictions have reignited concerns that pervasive food insecurity will worsen for the 2.3 million Gazans trapped in ghetto.
“Lack of food is some of the worst it’s been during the war, these past weeks especially,” Nour al-Amassi, a doctor who works in southern Gaza, told Reuters by phone.
“We thought we’d been able to get a hold on it but it’s got worse. My clinic treats 50 children a day for various issues, injuries and illness. On average 15 of those are malnourished.”
The number of supply trucks fell to around 130 per day in September, far below the 150 average since the beginning of the genocide, and desperately short of the 600 trucks a day that USAID says are required to counter the threat of wartime famine.
Starvation as a weapon
Food insecurity has been one of most fraught issues of the ongoing Gaza genocide that has claimed 41 689 lives and injured 96 625 others in 362 days of relentless murder.
In May, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors requested arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him or using “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.
Israeli authorities have denied this, saying they “facilitate” food deliveries to Gaza. In September, they filed two challenges to the ICC warrants request, contesting its legality and the court’s jurisdiction.
Israel’s occupation of Rafah has cut off supplies from Egypt, the US “pier” has long ago floated away, and the Jordanian route had become the most reliable route for supplies, until two weeks ago.
Dwindling numbers
Transportation increased after Israeli authorities agreed with Jordan to simplify customs procedures for humanitarian aid, but that changed in mid -August when Cogat announced suddenly that this fast track had been revoked.
The UN side had proposed an alternative resolution to the form dispute and was hopeful Israel would accept it, sources said.
The recent drop in commercial supplies, however, has them worried. Commercial traders’ imports constituted the bulk of the 500 trucks that entered the territory daily before the war.
Israel allowed food imports to resume from Israeli-controlled territory in May, augmenting daily supplies with fresh, nutritious products not contained in aid shipments, sources said.
But commercial shipments plunged from a daily average of 140 trucks in July to 80 in September, Cogat figures show. In the last two weeks of September, Gaza-based traders said that fell even further, to just 45 trucks.
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