UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20 (IPS) – On March 18, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an attack on the Gaza Strip, effectively terminating the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement. This comes after a pause in ceasefire operations when Israel continued its blockade on humanitarian aid in the enclave and demanded the release of additional hostages.
Following the renewed bombardment, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the IDF and appealed for a return to the ceasefire. On March 19, IDF spokesperson Israel Katz issued a statement to X (formerly known as Twitter), in which he assured an escalation in destruction if the hostages are not released.
āSoon, the evacuation of the population from combat zones will resume, and what follows will be far more severeāyou will pay the full price. Return the hostages and remove Hamasāthe alternative is total devastation,ā said Katz. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also confirmed that the IDF would attack Gaza with āincreasing forceā.
Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan responded by stating that Israelās actions would not alter the terms in the ceasefire. Rather, they would only exacerbate instability in the region.
Since January, the IDF has killed at least 106 Palestinians, most of whom were situated in and around the āno-goā zones alongside the borders of Gaza. The attack, consisting of a series of airstrikes and artillery shellings, has taken the lives of at least 404 Palestinians and injured over 560. Many more victims are still trapped underneath rubble.
The United Nations Childrenās Fund (UNICEF) reports that March 18 was one of the largest single-day death tolls for children in the past year globally. āToday, Gazaās one million children ā who have endured more than 15 months of war ā have been plunged back into a world of fear and death. The attacks and the violence must stop ā now,ā said UNICEFās Executive Director Catherine Russell.
According to a recent humanitarian situation update from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in addition to a widespread loss of human life, the attacks have also caused considerable damage to critical infrastructure and an exacerbation in rates of civilian displacement.
āThe Israeli military reportedly hit residential buildings, schools and IDP camps ā a trend that has been documented extensively by our Office since October 2023. We are again seeing the scenes of mutilated bodies of children, and bodies wrapped in shrouds. The Israeli military also issued a displacement order from several parts of Gazaā¦It is unacceptable, even unimaginable, to once again find ourselves talking about this instead of supporting a path towards meaningful recovery and sustainable peace,ā said Ajith Sunghay, Head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Prior to the attack, the IDF had issued evacuation orders for north Gaza and eastern Khan Younis, affecting over 30,000 people. Additional evacuation orders in Gazaās eastern, northern, and southern border areas have forced hordes of civilians to reside in the overcrowded coastal regions of the enclave. The UN has reported that approximately 90 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza ā 1.9 million ā have been forcibly displaced multiple times.
Dr. Mohammed Abu Silmiyeh, the Director of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, informed reporters that the current situation is ācatastrophicā, likening it to conditions seen in Gaza following October 7, 2023. Gazaās healthcare system is largely unequipped to handle large influxes of patients.
āThis morning, there were 50 bodies at the emergency department and another 30 at the morgue refrigerator. Operation rooms were full, and many injured people had died in front of our eyes while we couldnāt treat them,ā said Abu Silmiyeh, adding that there were many patients whose bodies had been mutilated in a graphic manner.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 17 hospitals remain non-functional, six are partially functional, and only four field hospitals are fully functional. However, these hospitals lack the necessary equipment, vehicles, and medication needed to attend to all the injured or killed civilians.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has also called for blood donations at functional hospitals. Critical medical infrastructures, such as oxygen generators and intensive care units, as well as numerous power outages, have been destroyed or critically damaged by the attack.
Israel has continued its blockade of humanitarian aid in Gaza which is projected to eliminate the substantial humanitarian progress that has been achieved in the first 42 days of the ceasefire. In a statement shared to X, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it had delivered over 40,000 tons of food to Gaza and distributed nutrition support and cash assistance since January.
With humanitarian aid deliveries having been halted for the foreseeable future in Gaza, the entirety of the enclaveās population is critically dependent on the remaining resources from Phase 1, which is rapidly dwindling. According to OCHA, over one million Palestinians are at risk of being left without food parcels.
Furthermore, OCHA warns that the closure of crucial border crossings threatens to exacerbate levels of malnutrition, dehydration, and other diseases, particularly for children and pregnant or breastfeeding women.
Agricultural facilities, such as greenhouses, farms, and irrigation systems have sustained significant damage, making it nearly impossible for Gaza to produce any food. Commercial food prices have far exceeded affordability for the majority of Gazans, with prices of staple items, such as flour, sugar, and vegetables, having increased by roughly 200 percent.
The UN has repeatedly called for a return to the ceasefire, underscoring the fragility of the security situation in the enclave. Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, has said in a statement that the international community must āuphold its obligation to protect Palestinians from annihilationā, and ensure that Israel does not have impunity for committing violations of international humanitarian law.
āIsraelās conduct aiming to ethnically cleanse the land between the river to the sea, amounts to a genocidal campaign to erase Palestinians as a people,ā said Albanese. āā¦What is happening to the Palestinians is a tragedy foretold, and a stain on Israelās history for which we bear collective responsibility. It is never too late for the world to stand up and do the right thing.ā
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