"We are not weak — but the war has broken our bones, and the siege has hollowed out our stomachs. We are not beggars. We are people entitled to our human rights.
We are people of this land. We are being besieged. We are being starved."
Amnesty's fieldworker in Gaza
Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families.
Two months on from the launch of the Israeli government-controlled scheme, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, massacres at food distribution sites are happening almost every day. According to the United Nations, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food, including on aid routes and at distribution points. Thousands more have been injured.
The blockade of Gaza must end. UN-led humanitarian aid must be immediately restored.
For nearly 18 years, Israel has maintained an illegal blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip. Since October 2023, it has tightened the blockade, restricting food, fuel, and medical supplies, deepening a humanitarian crisis as part of a calculated plan to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.
Through its suffocating blockade, Israel has consistently and deliberately restricted the entry of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid to the occupied Gaza Strip. Israel’s blockade is a key means through which it is inflicting genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and amounts to a form of collective punishment.
These acts are illegal, inhumane, cruel and deadly. The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to allow unimpeded flow of aid in January 2024 to protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide. Also, as the occupying power, Israel is obligated to ensure the survival and welfare of Gaza’s civilian population, not to strangle it.
This man-made catastrophe is enabled by the longstanding impunity the international community has been granting Israel for decades. The blockade on Gaza is not about security, it is genocidal.
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