A fragile ceasefire in Gaza
Despite the recent ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the conditions continue to be extremely challenging.
“We still don’t see any sufficient amount of aid being transported into Gaza to combat the most recent acute malnutrition, and of course the impact of the starvation and engineered famine that was happening for Gaza for many, many months,” said Jamil Sawalmeh, Country Director of ActionAid Palestine.
“Therefore the situation for the civilians continue to be extremely challenging, especially now that we are we have already entered into winter here. We have seen thunderstorms and heavy rain hitting these civilians living in tents that are not really in the best conditions for these civilians to live in.”
Sawalmeh highlights that aid is ready to go at the border crossings, but the Israeli Government’s systematic obstruction of aid is preventing it from entering Gaza. “International organisations, including UN agencies, have huge amounts of aid piled up at the Egyptian side of the borders, and it’s been obstructed,” he said.
“All of international organisations have the ability to scale up their aid once we have secure access into Gaza and the ability to transport it. More than 90% of the coordination requests submitted to the Israeli army have been denied.”
Winter storms devastate Gaza
With aid trickling into Gaza, there are severe shortages of shelter materials, food, blankets, and winter clothing – putting lives at risk as winter storms intensify.
“Right now we’re living in a tent… and it’s in terrible condition,” said Baraa, who was forced to flee her home in Beit Lahia. “We’ve been using the blankets that should be keeping us warm just to plug the holes in the tent. We have no winter clothes. My father died in the genocide, so there is no one to help us. We were displaced in the summer and had no time to pack anything, our house, our clothes, everything has been bulldozed.”
Another woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told us about the extremely difficult living conditions her family has been forced to endure. “We live in a tent that offers no protection from the summer heat or the winter cold. Every time it rains, the tents, mattresses, and clothes are flooded,” she said.
Jamil Sawalmeh describes the situation as a second catastrophe. “Let me be clear: without an immediate flow of shelter materials into Gaza, this winter will become a death sentence for thousands.”
“Children are sleeping in flooded tents, parents are burning scraps of plastic to stay warm, and entire communities are being washed into the mud. Our partners and staff are watching their shelters collapse in the rain, no one in Gaza is safe from this storm. No one can survive a winter like this without proper shelter,” he said.
West Bank occupation intensifies
While the world’s attention has been on the situation in Gaza, the situation for the Palestinian people in the West Bank has become increasingly oppressive, due to wide-scale military incursions, especially in the northern part of the West Bank around the refugee camps, together with attacks on Palestinian livelihoods, and attacks on Palestinian farmers.
“Most recently in the olive harvest season, which was one of the most challenging seasons for the Palestinian farmers here in the West Bank with a spike in the number of Israeli settlers attacks on these farmers,” says Sawalmeh. “So far, we have more than 50,000 people who have been internally displaced in the West Bank. This is the largest wave since the war in 1967 with no prospect for these refugees returning back to their homes, since most of these homes in the refugee camps have been demolished.”
“Movement obstruction also continue to be challenging in the West Bank because of the Israeli checkpoints and gates. So far, Israel has installed more than 1,000 gates in the West Bank. So we can say that every, every community, every village, town and city in the West Bank is now isolated by a gate installed by the Israeli army.”
Jannah Al-Ezzeh, a working mother living in Hebron, describes the challenges of everyday life in the West Bank. “We struggle with checkpoints being constantly closed. We face many difficulties with Israeli soldiers and settlers. We are constantly harassed. At checkpoints, we are thoroughly searched,” she says. “As a working woman, I face many challenges [with] just leaving the house to get to work. I now fear for my own safety, as well as my children’s when they go to school.”
What action needs to be done
ActionAid continues to urge the international community to take action to ensure unrestricted humanitarian access into Gaza and an end to policies that perpetuate displacement and starvation.
Although the 17 November UN Security Council resolution marked an acknowledgement that the current situation in Gaza cannot continue, some of its provisions risk entrenching rather than resolving the true drivers of conflict. “Temporary measures may be helpful in stopping the bleeding today,” says Sawalmeh. “But Palestinians continue to be killed by Israeli fire daily, throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, and Israeli authorities continues to obstruct humanitarian action in countless ways since the ceasefire came into force five weeks ago.”
“Palestinians do not need new forms of foreign supervision. If the UN Security Council believes that external oversight is necessary, it must ensure such measures are directed toward the Israeli authorities, found by its own bodies to be responsible for major crimes.”
You can support ActionAid’s humanitarian response in Gaza by donating to the Gaza Crisis Appeal. If you would like to support our advocacy to the Australian Government, you can add your name to our letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on him to take action for Palestine.