Humanitarian workers’ safety must be guaranteed to support ‘colossal’ increase in aid to Gaza

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Child rights NGO Plan International warns that in order to prevent needless child deaths, restore dignity, and lessen psychological suffering, a "colossal" increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza is urgently required. Six months have passed since Israel began its military campaign in retaliation for an armed Palestinian group's attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 Israeli citizens, on Sunday, April 7. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that over 32,000 people have died in Gaza, including 13,000 children. It's still thought that there are more than a hundred hostages inside Gaza. After six months of nonstop aerial bombardment, almost all of Gaza's civilian population now depends on humanitarian aid to survive. Nevertheless, relief organisations have only been able to secure authorisation to transport a small portion of the supplies needed to keep Gaza's 2.1 million residents alive. As a result of Tuesday's (2 April) airstrike that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, numerous NGOs have withdrawn from Gaza, which Plan International says will exacerbate the already dire situation. The organisation demands that all parties to the conflict ensure the safety of civilians and aid workers in accordance with international humanitarian law, in solidarity with humanitarian and human rights organisations across the globe. According to the IPC partnership*, famine in Gaza could strike at any time between now and May due to food shortages brought on by Israel's prolonged military assault and restrictions on aid. This prediction was made last month. Plan International states that for every child at risk of dying from an air strike, starvation, or lack of access to healthcare, countless others will suffer from permanent psychological damage as a result of witnessing the deaths of family members or friends, suffering catastrophic injuries, or losing the necessities of childhood.

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In March, an average of 161 aid trucks crossed into Gaza each day – well below the combined capacity of the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings, which is 500 per day.

Dr Unni Krishnan, Plan International’s Global Humanitarian Director, says: “Time is slipping away rapidly for the children in Gaza, more urgently than ever. A significant surge in vital humanitarian aid is crucial and urgent. To make this a reality, ensuring the safety of aid workers and civilians is paramount.

“Just a few minutes’ drive from Rafah, where families are sheltering in the most unimaginable and rudimentary conditions, there are thousands of trucks containing food and other life-saving supplies. It is absolutely critical that safe humanitarian access to Gaza is guaranteed at speed, so that aid agencies can deliver supplies to civilians in desperate need, especially malnourished children and pregnant women.

“Right now, Gaza is known as the most intricate humanitarian response context in the world. It is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child and an aid worker. We know from experience that the catastrophic psychological impact of war will continue to haunt children and their caregivers long after fighting stops. An 18-year-old living in Gaza today will have lived through conflict in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021 and now since October 2023, witnessing things no child ever should. This has a profound impact on a young mind.

“We urge all parties to guarantee safe, unimpeded access for humanitarian workers and vital relief supplies in Gaza. We also continue to call for a permanent, complete and immediate ceasefire, as the only way to truly bring this suffering to an end.”

Since October 2023, Plan International has been scaling up support to humanitarian partners to provide critical humanitarian assistance inside Gaza. Since the start of Ramadan, Iftar meals have been provided to a total of 6,000 internally displaced people in Rafah via Taawon, a local partner.

Plan International has also been working with Egyptian Red Crescent to deliver supplies via the Rafah crossing in Egypt. To date, 600 food baskets, 1,000 first aid kits and 1,600 cartons of water have been delivered.

The organisation is currently working to deliver female protection kits to women in Gaza, containing supplies such as abayas, hairbrushes, underwear and winter shawls – items which have been in desperately short supply.

Fatima, a 23-year-old youth activist who has fled with her family to the east of Gaza, told Plan International how her family now uses animal feed for baking, while her brother takes the risk of going to the eastern line in search of vegetables.

She says that food shortages have left her feeling “helpless”, and that she worries her young sisters are not getting the nutrition they need for their growing bodies to develop.

“Since the beginning of the conflict, we have been collecting wild plants from the land to eat including hibiscus, chard and lentils. When we can’t find anything growing near to us, my brother, who is 18 years old, goes to the eastern line to look for chard, but this is dangerous because of the occupation and the risk of being bombed.

“Flour is expensive and very scarce, so we use animal feed for baking. My uncles travel for long distances to get flour from the aid distributions. There are no vegetables or fruit for sale anywhere and the price of meat and chicken is very expensive, around 50 USD per kilo. A bag of flour is about five hundred dollars per bag. The food stocks in our house are almost gone.

“I feel sad that I can’t have the food I want, it makes me feel helpless and that my existence has no value.

“Yesterday was the first time that we have eaten meat in five months. We raise pigeons and decided to eat one as we have nothing else left. It made me feel happy because I haven’t eaten good food for a long time.”

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