One particularly cruel aspect of warfare is that it is the vulnerable – civilians, the elderly and the sick – who often bear the brunt of conflict, even after the fighting stops. The fact that children are forced to endure trials most adults struggle to cope with is heinous in the extreme. And yet, even in the early 21st century, this is what is taking place in Gaza, a conflict zone where a ceasefire is supposed to be relieving the pressures caused by two years of war, adding to the pressures of the continued occupation of Palestine.
In an exclusive interview with The National this week, Janti Soeripto, the head of Save the Children US, painted a grim picture of a freezing, squalid territory where minors play in sewage water and shelter in fragile tents.
"What you really see particularly in war zones, conflict-affected areas, is that children suffer the most, and they're often quite invisible, because their parents and the community is focused on managing their immediate needs,” Ms Soeripto said. "It is that moment of intense stress and violence that really puts children at additional risk.”
Given the acute suffering taking place, one would expect a major international aid effort to be in full swing. And yet, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said last Friday that although famine in the devastated enclave has been pushed back, humanitarian needs there are growing faster than aid can enter the territory.
This situation is being exacerbated by the Israeli authorities’ approach to aid access. With its forces still in control of large parts of the Palestinian enclave, Israeli-imposed restrictions – particularly on so-called dual-use items – are frustrating the efforts of aid workers on the ground and impeding what should be a determined international humanitarian effort.
Last week, EU humanitarian aid commissioner Hadja Lahbib explained she saw "hundreds of trucks full of items, essential supplies, medicines, shelters, tents, sleeping bags” waiting at the Rafah border crossing during a recent visit to Gaza. The UN said last month that Israel had rejected more than 100 requests by aid groups to deliver materials including blankets, winter clothes and tools to operate water, sanitation and hygiene services. Israel says these decisions are taken on security grounds.
That Gaza is a dangerous place is undeniable – particularly for Palestinians, more than 400 of whom have been killed by the Israeli military since the October ceasefire. Public figures and officials in Israel and the US have claimed that Hamas is rearming itself and yet there is little independently verified evidence that the militants are doing so on a large-scale basis, let alone diverting dual-use aid items for use as weaponry.
Such aid delays are enabling the creeping immiseration of Gaza’s civilian population and fulfilling, whether intentionally or not, the stated aim of extremists in Israel of ridding the territory of its Palestinian population. The Palestinians’ dire circumstances present aid workers and NGOs with a dilemma: how to meet immediate humanitarian needs without normalising displacement, whereby emergency fixes – such as replacing makeshift tents with prefabricated caravans – risk becoming permanent, slowing reconstruction and normalising displacement rather than resolving it.
If Israel genuinely wants rigorous scrutiny of the materials entering Gaza, then it needs to work on implementing Phase 2 of the peace plan and facilitating the work of the mooted stabilisation force who can maintain law and order. A stable Gaza that is rebuilding is less of a threat to Israeli security than a waterlogged shantytown of freezing children with no hope.
