Israel’s plan to extend its Gaza offensive, move people into the enclave and take control of the aid distribution has horrified the Gazans which have already undergone several movements and severe food shortages for almost 19 months.
Israel has blocked all the help by entering Gaza since March 2, when a two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas, which had improved access to gas to food and medication and has allowed many of them to go home, to disintegrate.
Moaz Kahlout, a man inappropriate from Gaza City, said that many general practitioners use GPS to locate the rubble of houses destroyed during the war.
“They destroyed us, moved us and killed us,” said Enshirah Bahloul, a woman in the southern city of Khan Younis. “We want security and peace in this world. We do not want to remain homeless, hungry and thirsty.”
Attending funeral on Monday for several people killed in an Israeli air strike in a Gaza City building, Mohammed al-Seikaly said that things were so disastrous that it was difficult to understand Israel’s plans to intensify his assault.
“There is nothing left in the Gaza Strip which has not been struck by explosive missiles and barrels, and there are still threats to expand the operation,” he said.
“I ask in front of the whole world, what remains to be bombed?”
On Tuesday, Israeli military strikes killed at least 37 Palestinians in Gaza, the local health authorities announced. Doctors said that at least 17 people, including women and children, were killed in a family home from families in the Bureij camp in the Gaza Central Strip.
The Israeli army said it had struck “terrorists” operating from a command center they used to store weapons and plan and organize attacks on Israel.
Military expansion not a solution: father of the hostage
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the extended military operation would be “intensive” and would involve holding seized territories and moving the Palestinians “for their own security”.
Some Israelis are also opposed to the plan. One person was arrested after hundreds of people protested the Parliament on Monday while the government opened its doors for its summer session.
The hostage families detained in Gaza are afraid of what an enlarged military operation or crisis could mean for their loved ones.
“I do not see the expansion of war as a solution – it led us absolutely nowhere. It looks like already seen a year ago,” said Adi Alexander, father of Israeli American Alexander, soldier captured in the attacks of October 7, 2023.
Israel has approved a plan to intensify military operations against Hamas by entering Gaza, establishing new bases and remaining for an unpertified period. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Gaza population would be transferred to the south.
The father pinpoints some hopes on the visit of American president Donald Trump in the Middle East, which takes place next week. Israeli leaders said they were not planning to extend the operation to Gaza before Trump’s visit, leaving the door open for a possible agreement.
Trump does not expect to visit Israel, but he and other American officials have frequently talked about Edan Alexander, the last American Israeli held in Gaza, who is still considered alive.
Moshe Lavi, Omri Miran’s brother-in-law, 48, the oldest hostage who was still alive, said the family was concerned about the Israeli plan.
“We hope that it is only a signal for Hamas that Israel is serious with its objective of dismantling its government and military capacities as a lever effect for negotiations, but it is not clear if it is an end or a means,” he said.
Lack of food in Gaza
Meanwhile, every day, dozens of Palestinians gather outside a charitable cuisine that distributes hot meals to displaced families from the south of Gaza. Children push pots or buckets forward, pushing and pushing in a desperate attempt to cause food to their families.
“What should we do?” Sara Younis, a woman in the southern city of Rafah asked Sara Younis, while waiting for a hot meal for her children. “There is no food, no flour, nothing.”
An Israeli official said that the plan would involve moving the civilian population to the south and controlling the distribution of aid to prevent food from falling into Hamas. The United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination rejected the plan on Tuesday as “the opposite of what is necessary”.
Gaza’s children show signs of acute malnutrition while Israel’s blockade on food and medicine extends in its third month. Help efforts vacillate and with almost disappeared supplies, the UN warns that famine has already started.
The 2.3 million people from Gaza have trouble with a shortage of food, with a lot of eating only once a day. The World Food Program said on April 25 that it was short of food stocks in the strip.
Nidal Abu Helal, a man inappropriate from Rafah who works on the charity, said that the group was increasingly concerned that people, especially children, will die from famine.
“We are not afraid to die of missiles,” he said. “We are afraid that our children would die of hunger in front of us.”
Some residents have eaten weeds or leaves, while the fishermen turned to capture sea turtles and the sale of their meat.
Hamas, the Islamist militant group that has directed Gaza since 2007, accuses Israel of “using food as a weapon in its war against the people of Gaza”.
The war was triggered by attacks led by Hamas against southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostage, according to Israel’s accounts.
The Israel campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, according to local health authorities, and has reduced a large part of Gaza to the ruins.
