Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Cindy McCain called upon Israel on Monday to increase humanitarian access to Gaza. McCain met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to discuss the food crisis in the region. After the October 7 attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) put a blockade in place in Gaza to pressure Hamas. The Israeli sanctions have cut access to power and wifi, prevented access to water and severely limited imports of food into the country. Many humanitarian organizations like WFP have rallied their networks to create food aid packages to distribute in Gaza. However, the shipments often get stuck at the Gaza-Egypt border due to Israel’s sanctions.
Journalists on the scene say the diets of Palestinians consist mainly of bread during the blockade. According to a report by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only one wheat-flour mill remains in operation in Gaza. When residents line up for the limited supplies of bread at bakeries, they also face the danger of exposure to airstrikes. The food crisis becomes even more complex as over 1.7 million people have become internally displaced. Getting foodstuffs to these people can be a huge logistical challenge. Even then, WFP says the current stocks of rice, vegetable oil and other essential items will run out in one to three days.
The WFP’s current aid to Palestinians includes distributing foodstuffs, sending food to refugees residing with host families in other countries, and providing cash-based transfers to other families so that they may purchase food on their own where available. Yet, the WFP stresses the flow of food must dramatically increase to meet the needs of Palestinian civilians.
Israel and its Western allies have committed to more sanctions to put economic pressure on Hamas. Western officials also say the blockade will help prevent Hamas from restocking their artillery for future terror attacks. Critics say the sanctions have indiscriminate effects which may constitute genocide under international law. In particular, the blockade of food and water may violate Article 2(c) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2(c) defines “genocide” as “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
