While a first boat loaded with food left Cyprus on Tuesday for the Gaza Strip on the verge of famine and bombarded daily by the Israeli army, a UN agency denounces a “
war against children”
in the Palestinian territory besieged.
According to the Hamas health ministry, at least 27 people died of malnutrition and dehydration, including children.
“This war is a war against children
,” wrote on X the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
"Dizzy.
The number of children allegedly killed in just four months in Gaza is higher than the number of children killed in four years in all conflicts around the world
,” he said, referring to the figures from the According to the UN, 12,193 children died in conflicts around the world between 2019 and 2022.
A population deprived of food and water
This year,
“Ramadan tastes like blood, misery, separation and oppression
,” lamented Oum Mohammed, a Palestinian displaced in the city of Rafah (south), hit by serious shortages food and drinking water.
On Tuesday, new Israeli bombings targeted Rafah as well as the neighboring city of Khan Younes and Gaza City in the north, according to witnesses.
The strikes left at least 72 dead in 24 hours, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
“In no war in the world has a population been deprived of food, medicine, electricity and water.
What Israel is doing is unprecedented
,” lamented Bassel Yassin, a displaced person in Rafah.
Faced with the humanitarian catastrophe, Arab and Western countries have been dropping aid every day for more than a week and have set up with the European Union a maritime corridor towards the Palestinian territory devastated and besieged by Israel since October 9.
But with the vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants threatened by famine, the UN repeats that this assistance cannot replace the land route, controlled by the Israeli authorities and which only enters -drops.
200 tons of food must arrive
Despite international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to
“destroy”
Hamas after the attack carried out on October 7 by commandos of this movement infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel.
At least 1,160 people were killed, most of them civilians, according to a count established by AFP from official Israeli sources.
The boat is towing a barge loaded with 200 tonnes of food which is to be distributed in Gaza by the American organization World Central Kitchen, whose teams there have started to build a jetty to unload the cargo.
Cyprus, the closest EU country to Gaza, announced that it was preparing a second,
“much larger”
load .