By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge
CAIRO/GENEVA (Reuters) -Since Israel shut a vital corridor into famine-stricken northern Gaza before escalating its ground offensive this month, community kitchens and health clinics have closed and vital flows of food have slowed, residents and U.N. agencies say.
The Zikim Crossing was shut on September 12, days ahead of an Israeli ground offensive on Gaza City in the north of the territory, prompting warnings from aid agencies.
Since then, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) told Reuters it had not managed to bring any supplies through Zikim, previously the route for half its food deliveries into Gaza.
There has been a reduction of about 50,000 daily meals in northern Gaza compared to 109,000 daily meals before Zikim closed, as some kitchens in Gaza City serving free meals shut, according to Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGOs Network.
GAZANS SAY FOOD IS SCARCER
Residents say conditions are getting worse. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the latest offensive, though others have stayed put despite Israeli evacuation orders, citing fears about security and hunger if they move.
“The situation is becoming more difficult,” said Um Zaki, a mother of five who has stayed in Sabra, Gaza City, describing rising food prices and increasing scarcity. “People who sell things like food…have left to the south,” she said.
Ismail Zayda, a 40-year-old with a week-old baby girl and two young boys displaced from Gaza City to a camp near the coast, said he was making ends meet with canned supplies.
“There are no vegetables at all,” he said.
Gaza City municipality says it also faces a worsening water crisis, with supplies meeting less than 25% of daily needs. Fuel shortages and security risks have curtailed water deliveries.
Israel says there is no quantitative limit on food aid entering Gaza and accuses Hamas, which it has been at war with for nearly two years, of stealing aid — accusations the Palestinian militant group denies.
COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into the enclave, said humanitarian aid to the northern Gaza Strip continues and that it seeks to expand the capacity of Kissufim crossing into central Gaza threefold.
HARD TO DISTRIBUTE AID
COGAT said around 300 aid trucks, mostly carrying food, have entered Gaza daily in recent weeks, and that it was coordinating transfer of fuel for desalination facilities and water wells. When asked if Zikim would open, it said the entry of trucks would be facilitated “subject to operational considerations.”
Israel says responsibility for distributing aid in Gaza lies with international agencies, which COGAT said it was trying to help.
However, the WFP said it faced logistical challenges moving food from southern to northern Gaza due to congestion on the sole access road.
OCHA said Israel had denied 40% of requested movements to northern Gaza in the 10 days after Zikim’s closure.
“Zikim being closed makes famine, to those who are left behind, even more deadly,” said Ricardo Pires, spokesperson for U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in Geneva.
“Children are literally wasting away in front of our eyes while the world normalizes their suffering,” he said.
A global hunger monitor confirmed last month that famine had taken hold in Gaza City and was likely to spread, a finding disputed by Israel.
HEALTH FACILITIES STRUGGLING
Those needing treatment for malnutrition have few options.
Four health facilities in Gaza City have shut down so far this month, according to the World Health Organization, and the U.N. says some malnutrition centres have also closed. Hospitals in southern Gaza cannot absorb more patients fleeing.
A spokesperson at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, Khalil al-Dakran, told Reuters it was at capacity and lacked medicines, supplies, and fuel.
Mass displacement from the north is also straining food stocks in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in southern Gaza – areas at risk of famine, said Antoine Renard, WFP Palestine country director.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge in Geneva, Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza and Sinan Abu Mayzer; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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