Speed of deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Gaza ‘absolutely terrifying’: WPF Director

A big obstacle to getting humanitarian aid into Gaza are the border checks Israel insists on making before trucks are allowed to enter.

Supplies arrive in Egypt on cargo ships at Port Said, or by plane at El Arish airport. Trucks due to enter Gaza are then checked by Israeli authorities at Nitzana, then cross back into Egypt where they head to the Rafah crossing – the last time any truck was allowed to pass through Rafah was February 4 – or they go to the Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem crossing for inspection and enter there.

Before the war began, about 500 trucks a day crossed into Gaza through Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom); only a handful are getting through now.

We’ve spoken to Alex de Waal, executive director at World Peace Foundation and the author of, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, about the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in besieged and bombarded Gaza.

Al Jazeera: You recently wrote a piece in which you said there’s no instance since World War II in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed. Can you elaborate and tell us what you are basing it on?

Alex de Waal: I’ve been studying famine, and particularly man-made famine, the use of starvation as a war crime, for 40 years.

I’ve looked at cases around the world – Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Syria – and the cases that are the most obviously comparable in recent history are the sieges of Syrian cities by the Assad regime.

But nothing is comparable in terms of the speed and the concentrated effort at destroying what is essential to sustain the life of people – nothing compares to Gaza over the last 75 years.

The speed of deterioration of humanitarian conditions is absolutely terrifying.

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