The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has begun
advisory proceedings on the obligations of Israel as an
occupying power to facilitate the entry of aid to
Palestinians in Gaza, this decision however will take time.
People in Gaza do not have that luxury.
Médecins Sans
Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has recently
raised the alarm that the Gaza Strip is becoming a
mass grave for Palestinians and those trying to
provide aid to them.
Waiting for any kind of legal
recourse to end Israel’s intentional choking of aid, food
and medicine into Gaza will condemn yet more Palestinians to
avoidable death, while the world watches on impassively,
doing nothing to avoid this indiscriminate and abhorrent
cruelty.
The situation in the Gaza Strip is dire on
every level. The Israeli authorities’ full ban on all
humanitarian aid and supplies since 2 March is having deadly
consequences for civilians in Gaza and is severely limiting
our capacity as humanitarians and medical workers to respond
in any meaningful or effective way.
Israeli
authorities are not only using aid as a bargaining chip but
as a weapon of war and a means of collective punishment for
over 2 million people living in the Strip. MSF teams are
witnessing shortages of medical supplies and food. States
need to do more to pressure Israeli authorities into lifting
the siege and letting aid enter the war-torn enclave at
scale to prevent more suffering and
death.”
Claire Nicolet, MSF Head of
Emergencies
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