CNN
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A. USA’s deadline for Israel The agreement to improve the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza has expired, with the Biden administration determining that Israel did not withhold aid and therefore did not violate U.S. law governing foreign military aid.

The State Department said progress was being made, although changes were needed, so there would be no disruption to U.S. arms supplies.

However, the US view stands in stark contrast to the bleak picture on the ground. Aid reached Gaza It is not distributed.

Civilians fleeing northern Gaza after weeks of intense Israeli military operations say people are starving to death from a chronic lack of food, while aid agencies warn that the region is on the brink of famine.

“We received no help and no one sent us food,” Umm Muhammad Al-At’out, 63, told CNN this week. “Our children died of hunger and thirst.”

His account of people dying of starvation was also supported by people CNN interviewed in northern Gaza, where the Israeli army resumed ground operations in early October.

Abu Ahmed Subaih Beit Lahiya He told CNN that he and his parents, who are in their 80s, walked for miles. “There’s no food of any kind,” he said.

A woman who gave her name as Ghalia and said she was 83 years old told CNN: “We don’t know vegetables, meat, fruits anymore. “We used to live on canned food, there is no canned food anymore.”

The accounts of desperate civilians reflect the statements of the World Health Organization warning Last Friday there was “a strong possibility that famine is imminent in areas north of the Gaza Strip.”

On Wednesday, Dr. Kamal Adwan Hospital director in Beit Lahiya. Hussam Abu Safiya told CNN that the hospital has received dozens of cases of malnutrition among children and adults.

Many factors have contributed to what aid agencies have called the worst point for the humanitarian situation in Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023.

These include ongoing Israeli military operations, evacuation orders affecting hundreds of thousands of people, a breakdown of law and order that has led to the looting of aid convoys, a shortage of truck drivers, and frequent refusals by Israeli authorities to allow aid to pass through.

Last month, the Biden administration made an offer to Israel: 30 day period Take specific steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including increasing commercial traffic and ending the isolation of the north.

When the deadline expired, the US State Department said it had “made no assessment that the Israelis had violated US law” and that they would not face any penalties.

Much of the aid community disagrees.

On Tuesday, eight humanitarian organizations said the Israeli government “has not only failed to meet US criteria for demonstrating support for humanitarian intervention, but has also taken actions that have dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza.”

Kate Phillips-Barrasso, director of Mercy Corps, one of those groups, told CNN that commercial traffic to Gaza “has come to a complete halt.”

“We are really at a turning point in terms of this evolving into a devastating food insecurity situation,” Phillips-Barrasso said.

According to the World Food Programme, the average number of trucks entering Gaza in the second half of October dropped to just 58 per day; this was the lowest level since November last year.

Before the war started, nearly 500 commercial and aid trucks entered every day.

COGAT, the Israeli agency that approves aid shipments to Gaza, said on Saturday that 713 aid trucks have reached northern Gaza via the Erez West crossing point since the beginning of October. However, most of this aid remains at the transit point.

The same goes for Kerem Shalom on Gaza’s eastern border. COGAT told CNN on Wednesday that 900 truckloads were waiting on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. maximum capacity. However, he added that materials were collected from 122 trucks on Tuesday.

Aid organizations frequently state that food and water distribution is problematic due to Israeli attacks, evacuation orders and the lack of safe corridors. almost impossible.

They also say Israeli authorities frequently delay or deny passage to Gaza. The World Food Program (WFP) told CNN on Tuesday that deliveries planned for areas of urgent need in northern Gaza were rejected by Israeli authorities.

Last week, an approved convoy of ten food trucks was reportedly held up in Cebalya for two hours and “some of the food was unloaded by people surrounding the trucks.”

It was stated that the food never reached the places where the displaced Palestinians were sheltered.

Joyce Msuya, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Israeli authorities were “blocking humanitarian aid from entering northern Gaza, where fighting continues and water and food supplies for approximately 75,000 people are running out.”

CNN asked the Israeli government to respond to Msuya’s comments.

The planned 14-truck WFP aid convoy was intended to carry supplies to Beit Hanoun and the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalya, but only two trucks reached their destination due to “delays in movement permits and crowded routes”, OCHA said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Tuesday that “hundreds of food packages and thousands of liters of water were delivered to distribution centers for the remaining civilian population in the Beit Hanoun area” on Monday.

But shipments of this size only scratch the surface of the enormous need.

In addition to the lack of aid, 13 months of continuous air strikes have devastated agriculture and industry in Gaza. Most of the residential area Farmland is located in the north and along Israel’s eastern border, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled.

The vast majority of Gazans have little or no work and cannot afford to buy food at high prices.

Saber Salem, a father of 10 who currently lives in Gaza, told CNN on Wednesday: “We would get aid vouchers maybe every two months. “There is nothing to buy, and if there is goods, they are expensive.”

Community soup kitchens and bakeries are also closing or running short of supplies.

Amjad Al-Shawa – president of the Palestinian Network of Non-Governmental Organizations (PNGO) In Gaza – Soup kitchens serving hot meals to 300,000 people a day are now open, he told CNN closed and many bakeries also closed.

There is also the issue of profiteering. On Sunday, dozens of people marched through a market in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, chanting: “We are the people, you merchants are thieves!”

“They sell a kilo of sugar for 80 shekels instead of two,” a young man told CNN.

Widespread desperation led to frequent incidents of looting of both warehouses and convoys. In late October, CNN filmed a desperate fight over bread in one of the few functioning bakeries.

However, most of the looting is done by organized gangs.

Gaza Transportation Association President Nahd Shuheiber said there has been an “increase in theft of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid” this week due to the lack of police.

Police in Gaza are the target of Israeli attacks because It is affiliated with Hamas.

Shuheiber said “bandits” near the Kerem Shalom crossing were stealing from trucks, which “created an environment of chaos in which we cannot operate effectively.”

Mercy Corps’ Barroso-Phillips told CNN that the needs in Gaza far exceed those beyond its borders.

“And as a result, there are likely to be people dying of starvation literally miles from where food is available.”

Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed reporting.