EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
It's been a month since Israel last allowed food, medical supplies or fuel to enter Gaza. It's the longest blockade of the war, and it's impacting Gaza's two million people who rely entirely on what Israel allows in. And aid flowed into Gaza during a recent ceasefire, but now fighting has resumed. NPR's Aya Batrawy reports on what this means for people there.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Humanitarian organizations in Gaza are sounding the alarm. They're running out of supplies just as needs are soaring. Margaret Harris is a spokesperson with the World Health Organization.
MARGARET HARRIS: We're looking at a situation right now that is as bad as it ever was. We knew it was bad before the ceasefire, when we were constantly begging to be allowed to do our job and just to help the ordinary people of Gaza to live their lives. It is now worse.
BATRAWY: Worse, Harris says, because of Israel's blockade and its return to war.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
BATRAWY: In Gaza City, mounds of garbage tower over families who've pitched tents here after fleeing Israeli airstrikes and heeding evacuation orders in the North. Since the ceasefire was shattered by Israel on March 18, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, hundreds of them children, Gaza's health ministry says. Yasser Subh says his family of 11 had no choice but to flee Beit Lahia and come here to this landfill.
YASSER SUBH: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: Subh says the flies, the smell, the sewage are eating away at them. The blockade has sent prices soaring. He can't afford cooking gas or coal. His kids are rummaging through garbage for plastic to burn.
SUBH: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: "We're sleeping next to garbage," he says. "What kind of life is this?"
Gavin Kelleher with the Norwegian Refugee Council in Gaza says a million people need tents. But, he says...
GAVIN KELLEHER: Given the total ongoing siege in Gaza, we're seeing the shelter response approaching a complete standstill because we have almost nothing left to distribute, despite still seeing these massive forced transfers happening every day, sometimes multiple times a day.
BATRAWY: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the blockade is to pressure Hamas.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: And he says Israel will continue its war until all hostages taken in Hamas' deadly attack on Israel in 2023 are freed and Hamas is eliminated. Israel's military says it's monitoring the humanitarian situation in Gaza and says there's plenty of food, but that's not what aid groups say.
JENS LAERKE: The supplies of food and other aid we managed to bring in are rapidly running out.
BATRAWY: That's Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office. He told reporters, international law is clear regarding the blockade.
LAERKE: Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
BATRAWY: The U.N. World Food Program says it has only a few days of flour left to keep bakeries running and just two weeks of food supplies to support charity kitchens. These bakeries and hot kitchens provide hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza with their single meal of the day. Save The Children's Alexandra Saieh says the group treated 4,000 malnourished children in Gaza during the ceasefire but not since war resumed.
ALEXANDRA SAIEH: Just to give you an example, every Monday and Wednesday, our clinics are open for women and girls in Deir al-Balah. And this week, we had no women and girls come in because they're too afraid to move around.
BATRAWY: And she says that means...
SAIEH: Children and breastfeeding mothers are not receiving the nutrients that they need to survive.
BATRAWY: Last week, the U.N. pulled a third of its international staff out after it says an Israeli tank fired at its guest house in central Gaza, killing a foreign staffer and severely wounding others. Kelleher of the Norwegian Refugee Council says, in the first 15 months of the war, aid groups were able to share their planned movements with Israel's military.
KELLEHER: Since the ceasefire collapsed, however, Israeli forces are refusing to give us formal acknowledgments that they know I am getting in a car tomorrow, driving to a displacement site and delivering assistance. And that's despite multiple requests for them to reactivate this urgently needed humanitarian notification system.
BATRAWY: The Israeli military acknowledges it halted these notifications ever since the ceasefire and says that movement coordination is carried out based on the situation. Also the U.N. says nearly half of all foreign medical teams are being denied entry into Gaza now. Israel's military told NPR it does not limit the number of these teams entering Gaza but notes they're subject to security inspections.
FEROZE SIDHWA: It's completely arbitrary and ridiculous.
BATRAWY: Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, an American trauma surgeon with MedGlobal, says 3 out of 5 doctors in his team were denied entry, one of them a U.S. army veteran.
SIDHWA: And so even though EMT teams are being allowed in, it's nowhere near the capacity that's actually needed.
BATRAWY: He says medical supplies are depleting as they try to cope with mass casualties from airstrikes. The hospital where he's volunteering was bombed a few days ago, killing a senior Hamas official Israel was targeting and a teenage boy. Outside Gaza are more doctors and tons of aid waiting to enter. Humanitarian agencies say they're racing against the clock.
Aya Batrawy, NPR News, Dubai, with reporting by Anas Baba in Gaza.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
