Aid for Gaza will create a hungry refugee camp – 10/18/2023 – Vinicius Torres Freire

A large water truck can carry 20 thousand liters of water. In a “humanitarian emergency” situation, a minimum of treated water per person would be 7.5 liters per day, according to the WHO (World Health Organization) — for drinking and eating, basically.

Given the population of Gaza, estimated at 2.23 million, 835 water truck trips per day would be necessary for people to have at least that minimum ration of water for catastrophe situations — war, earthquake, hurricane, etc.

This rudimentary arithmetic of horror serves to illustrate a comment about the possibility of humanitarian aid trucks now in Egypt entering Gaza, with permission from Israel.

The besieged land gets almost all of its water from wells and desalination plants, which are stopped because the only electrical plant in the territory stopped, due to a lack of industrial diesel (which came from Israel); the Israeli water company’s supply has obviously stopped as well.

Water is taken from wells using gambiarras. According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), water in (stocked) markets is “very limited” and several UNRWA shelters are dry. The UN agency says that, as of Wednesday (18), it was home to 513,507 people, a quarter of Gaza’s population.

The Israeli government said in a statement on Wednesday that “it will not impede humanitarian assistance from Egypt, as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population living in the south of the Gaza Strip [ou foge para lá] and as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas.”

The note also said that it will not allow Israeli aid to Gaza while the hostages [do Hamas e da Jihad Islâmica] are not released. This concession is due to the fact that the United States is providing “vast and vital support to the war effort [de Israel]” and because Joe Biden asked, the statement reads.

According to videos, local reports, news agencies and the Red Crescent, there would be 170 to 200 trucks ready to take food, medicine and water through the Rafah crossing, which is 12.7 km from Gaza’s border with Egypt, the only one that is not controlled by Israel. The courtyards of this crossing, which is a type of customs and migration screening center, have been bombed, as have the avenues that give access to the site.

Initially, 20 trucks from Egypt would enter Gaza, a “test”, Biden told reporters. Perhaps they will arrive there on Friday (20), on trips supervised by the UN. According to the Egyptian government, the facilities and streets of the crossing need to be repaired. If it works, foreigners also trapped in Gaza could leave for Sinai, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al Arabiya TV (owned by a Saudi media company).

For those who are in despair or even on the verge of death, it is some relief. It is not clear whether Gaza will receive fuel, which could perhaps be used to restart a generator and extract water from wells. Gaza has no electricity other than that provided by generators from hospitals and public utilities, which is still intermittent.

There will be no “help” coming out of Israel, says Netanyahu’s government, as long as Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not release the hostages they captured during the massacres in Israel, remember. It won’t happen, it’s an almost certain bet.

Therefore, the blockade, the siege, will last a long time. Therefore, it will be necessary for the Palestinians to flee to the south of Gaza, en masse. Therefore, it will be necessary for other countries to provide aid on an industrial scale, if logistics allow such a flow. In any case, it could be a means of facilitating the invasion of the northern part of Gaza. Anyone who wants help will need to live in a hypercrowded refugee camp, still starving.

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