Oxfam warned today that it cannot reach around 450,000 or more
people in Gaza because of fighting and aerial bombardment. The
international agency should be providing support including food,
clean water and sanitation but the bombing is making it too
dangerous for anyone to leave their homes.
Oxfam staff are trying to resume their humanitarian work with its
network of partners but the destruction and indiscriminate threat
to life make any emergency aid, at the moment, impossible to
mount. Prior to this escalation in the conflict, eighty percent
of Gaza’s two million residents were already in need of
humanitarian aid.
An Oxfam assessment found that many water wells and pumping
stations have been damaged by Israel’s bombardments. These
facilities are the only way for people living in Gaza to get
clean water and any disruption to them creates immediate
distress. Authorities estimate that 40 percent of Gaza water
supplies have been affected. People are struggling to secure cash
or income to buy food, water, and medicines. Many have been
forced to spend their savings or are trying to sell assets. Many
who have lost their homes have been forced into temporary
shelters and, for now, humanitarian agencies have not been able
to properly support them with food, water and sanitation
facilities.
Shane Stevenson, Oxfam Country Director for the Occupied
Palestinian Territory and Israel, said:
“The scale of suffering is immense yet we cannot respond
properly. Until the security situation improves things will
quickly deteriorate further. The aerial assaults have taken lives
and any sense of safety, but they are also taking away people’s
options to cope – to buy food and supplies, and to go about their
lives. Families are telling us that they are too scared to leave
their homes for food and some have already run out of drinking
water.
“The people of Gaza are psychologically exhausted and fearful and
exposed. They need peace now in order to pick up the broken
pieces of their lives.”
As much as 200,000 hectares of agricultural land has been bombed
or is currently inaccessible to farmers because of the danger of
attack. Transport and movement around Gaza is not only unsafe but
now made highly difficult because of the bomb damage to roads and
debris from destroyed buildings. Some arterial routes are blocked
entirely. Oxfam warns that it could take weeks to start
meaningful repairs and organise some recovery and resumption of
normality for people in Gaza, even if a ceasefire was declared
today.
Stevenson said: “Gaza is also in the midst of coping with the
Covid pandemic. People need access to water and medicines and
hospitals to halt the virus spread and help nurse sufferers to
recovery. Adding conflict on top of Covid feels like a recipe for
disaster."
Oxfam calls for an immediate end to all violence. All parties
must comply and adhere to their obligations under international
humanitarian law. The international community must immediately
work to put an end to both the current escalation of hostilities
and the underlying human rights violations and systemic policies
of oppression and discrimination which gave rise to it, including
the Israeli occupation itself.
