(NewsNation) — A humanitarian pause in parts of Gaza is underway, Israel announced early Sunday morning.
The Israeli military has halted operations in three parts of the region for 10 hours each day and will create new permanent routes for aid deliveries, it said. It will also resume airdrops of food.
The people of Gaza awaiting those deliveries have said it’s not enough and are calling for a full ceasefire and more substantial aid. This comes two days after American and Israeli officials walked away from ceasefire talks, saying Hamas appeared to not actually want a deal.
This is the first time since October that Israel has dropped humanitarian aid from the air, Middle East correspondent Jotam Confino told NewsNation’s “Morning in America with Hena Doba.”
The World Food Programe said they have enough humanitarian aid either in the region or on the way to the region to feed the entire population of Gaza for three months, but the aid hasn’t been reaching them.
Israel identified three areas to drop aid where a lot of people are already gathered and where it believes there will be no military actions, despite Hamas potentially being there, Confino said.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the American backed non-governmental organization, is distributing between roughly 2 and 3 million meals a day in Gaza, but the issue is to distribute it in a safe way.
Some of the delivery trucks have ben looted as soon as they crossed into the city centers, and the overwhelming need for food has resulted in stampedes. There was a large protest in Tel Aviv on Thursday for a ceasefire and hostage returns.
“The frustration in Israel is immense,” said Confino, who has reported on the ground throughout the war.
Mblock hunger in Gaza
The starvation in Gaza is a “dire, dire situation,” Doctors Without Borders project coordinator Caroline Willeman said as Israel resumes airdrops. She says there is “nothing humanitarian about the food distributions,” given the densely populated area and dangers of stampedes.
“Every single day people are being shot and killed at those sites,” Willeman said. “People who desperately go there. Looking for food have basically just as much chance to come back with a food parcel as to get a bullet in their head.”
Doctors Without Borders runs a primary healthcare clinic here in Gaza City and conducted malnutrition screenings for children under 5 last week. Willeman said 25% of them were malnourished.
“We have a fourfold increase of patients in our malnutrition program since May, so the sheer scale that will be needed in terms of food support for the people of Gaza is enormous because people have been deprived on purpose from food.”
Even her colleagues are starving.
“My own colleagues who have a salary have trouble feeding their families because so little is available in the market. The few things that are available are so expensive that even for people with a salary, it’s virtually impossible to buy food.”
The World Food Programme reports that 100% of people in Gaza face acute levels of food insecurity.
“On behalf of my Palestinian colleagues, on behalf of our patients, they are desperate for this pause, but also really what they need is a sustained ceasefire.”
Jotam Confino and NewsNation’s Hena Doba contributed to this report.
