Amidst the closure of crossings, warnings of increasing deaths from hunger and the spread of epidemics in Gaza

Local and international warnings of rising death rates in the Gaza Strip due to hunger as a result of the closure of crossings by the Israeli occupation, and fears of the increasing spread of diseases and epidemics as a result of not allowing the entry of cleaning materials.

For its part, the government media office in the Gaza Strip warned today, Tuesday, of the increase in the number of deaths due to hunger, especially among children, as a result of Israel’s continued prevention of the entry of aid and food into the Strip and the complete closure of the crossings for 64 days.

The office said in a statement that Israel "is working to escalate the starvation policy in the Gaza Strip, and deeply in the Gaza and North Governorates, by closing the crossings and targeting food stores and production facilities, in a clear violation of all international conventions that stipulate the right to food as a basic human right."

He pointed out that all international laws prohibit the starvation of civilians as a means of war during international and non-international armed conflicts, considering that "this prohibition is being violated by Israel against civilians in the Gaza Strip, as it exposes them to hunger by depriving them of food sources and supplies."

In the same context, a group of independent human rights experts commissioned by the United Nations said on Tuesday that the recent increase in the number of deaths among children due to malnutrition in the Gaza Strip indicates the spread of famine throughout the Strip.

The group of 11 experts noted in a statement that three children aged 13, nine and six months had died of malnutrition in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and Deir al-Balah in central Gaza since the end of May, adding that "with these children dying of starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there can be no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza to central and southern Gaza."

As a result of the war and Israeli restrictions that violate international laws, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are suffering from a severe shortage of food, water and medicine supplies, especially in the Gaza Strip and the northern Gaza Strip governorates, to the point of recording deaths due to hunger.

Spread of epidemics

On the other hand, with Israel continuing to close the Gaza Strip crossings and not allowing the entry of cleaning materials or the basic raw materials needed to manufacture them for more than two months, the spread of infectious skin diseases among the displaced Palestinians has worsened, and the prices of imported cleaning materials - if available - are witnessing a very significant increase, as it is difficult for the majority of Palestinians to buy them in light of the difficult economic conditions.

The child, Mohammed Dardas (5 years old), suffers from a skin disease resulting from using groundwater from a well for bathing and cleaning, without treatment due to the lack of cleaning materials. His mother, Nour Dardas, says: “We suffer from the lack of cleaning materials such as shampoo, body soap, etc., and I am forced to use salty water to clean Mohammed’s body while bathing.”

Sabah Abdel Karim, a young woman, also complains about the lack of detergents in the markets of Deir al-Balah city in the middle of the Gaza Strip, especially hair shampoo and hand soap, adding, “The locally manufactured products are not of high quality, but they were sufficient for the purpose, but they are no longer available due to the closure of the crossings and the non-permission of the entry of raw materials needed for manufacturing,” stressing, “Our bodies and the bodies of the children have become very sensitive and pimples have appeared in a very large number, we have begun to suffer from a lack of personal hygiene.”

Displacement to unsafe areas

In turn, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced in a post on the X platform today, Tuesday, that families living in areas that Israel ordered to be evacuated in Gaza City are forced to migrate to unsafe and destroyed areas, explaining that after Israel's new warnings about the evacuation, the forced migration of families continued.

She stressed that there is no safe place for displaced Palestinians to go to, adding, "The bombing of the Gaza Strip continues, and people are forced to go to destroyed areas despite the danger of unexploded ordnance," noting that nearly 1.9 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7.

Since October 7, Israel has been waging a devastating war with American support on Gaza, resulting in more than 126,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that has claimed the lives of dozens of children.