Israeli protesters have been trying to block aid trucks from reaching Gaza, where children are starving to death.
Demonstrators have been seen breaking through police lines and running in front of the food convoys, with some even playing techno music and holding dance parties at the border gate.
They say aid should be stopped until all the 134 Israeli hostages held by Hamas are free.
Several protesters believe the aid trucks don’t reach civilians and go straight to Hamas, while others suggest the boxes are full of weapons instead of food.
No evidence has been presented to support either of these theories.
Israel’s war in Gaza has left 30,000 Palestinians dead and a quarter of the enclave’s 2.3 million population starving, according to UN reports.
Hunger is most acute in northern Gaza, which has been isolated by Israeli forces and regularly cut off from food supplies.
The Health Ministry said at least 20 people have died from malnutrition and dehydration at Kamal Adwan and Shifa hospitals so far, most of them children.
Particularly vulnerable children are also beginning to succumb to starvation in the south, where access to aid is more frequent.
President Joe Biden, who has been heavily criticised for financing the Israeli military, says the US will build a temporary port to bring aid in.
According to a survey by the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute, 68% of Jewish Israelis opposed sending aid to Gaza under any circumstances.
Several videos posted on social media and filmed by international news crews show Israeli protesters of all ages, including children, at the borders trying to stop the aid.
Some wave Israeli flags or hold protest placards, with a few at the dance parties waving purple flags with Nova written on them, in reference to the music festival where Hamas killed dozens on October 7.
One woman told CNN she will keep trying to block aid until Hamas releases the hostages.
When the reporter said there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza she replied: ‘You know, even if there is a humanitarian crisis — and there’s not — even if there is, it’s my right and duty to prioritize [Israelis] over any Gazan babies.’
Another woman, called Debbie Sharon, said the aid was going straight to Hamas.
‘I’m telling you here and now, if we knew it’s getting to the children of Gaza, we will do it. This does not arrive at their doorstep,’ she added.
‘This goes into the tunnels of Hamas who are battling us and holding our hostages.’
‘I’m telling you here and now, if we knew it’s reaching the children of Gaza, we will do it. This does not reach at their doorstep,’ she added.
One protester said there was no way to inspect the trucks and believes they’re full of weapons.
‘Bags of rice that are supposed to go to their children are filled with bullets,’ she said.
Meanwhile 22-year-old Yosef de Bresser, 22, has been helping to organize efforts to block Gaza aid at the Kerem Shalom border.
‘War is war,’ he told the Washington Post, and said the US killed thousands of civilians bombing Japan in World War II.
‘Who gives his enemy aid?’
Another young man, Ben Shabat alleged – without proof – that Gazans use food supplies to make weapons.
‘When you mix flour with potassium nitrate you get an explosive for a warhead. Every pound of sugar and flour that goes into Gaza from Israel, we will get it back by the way of a rocket that will kill our children,’ he said.
He also said he’s helping IDF starve Hamas so they will struggle to fight.
Meanwhile, Tahel Attar, 17 said she’d heard that ‘Gazan people were being given stuff that they don’t really, really need. Like strawberries’.
‘I don’t think people there are crying for strawberries,’ she said.
A report from Refugees International on Thursday warned conditions inside of Gaza are ‘apocalyptic’.
‘After five months of war, Palestinians are struggling to find adequate food, water, shelter, and basic medicine. Famine-level hunger is already widespread and worsening,’ it added.
The report claimed Israel ‘constantly and groundlessly impeded aid operations within Gaza, blocked legitimate relief operations, and resisted implementing measures that would genuinely enhance the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza’.
‘[Israel has] erected unnecessary hurdles, complicated logistical processes, and an unpredictable vetting system, rendering the inspection regime overwhelmingly burdensome with layers of bureaucracy and inspection and limited working hours.’
A UN expert said on Thursday that Israel was destroying Gaza’s food system as part of a broader ‘starvation campaign’ in its war against Hamas militants.
‘The images of starvation in Gaza are unbearable and you are doing nothing,’ Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said in a speech to the UN Human Rights Council.
The US and other countries have made a number of air aid drops recently, but they provide far lower amounts of aid than trucks and can be dangerous.
Yesterday the Health Ministry and an eyewitness said five people were killed by an air aid drop when at least one the parachutes failed to open, CBS News reported.
It’s unclear which country made the airdrop.
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