By Burak Bir
LONDON (AA) – Israel is deliberately blocking the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip and imposing a total military siege that amounts to collective punishment, according to a new study released on Monday by a UK-based international aid organization.
In its report, Oxfam evaluated Israeli policies in Gaza, where the Israeli blockade has had a significant impact on humanitarian conditions and aid delivery for over 16 years.
The report stated that these conditions are now "catastrophic as a direct result of the carnage in Gaza," and that Israel has "total control" over what enters Gaza, including the timing, location, and manner in which aid is delivered and distributed.
"The fact that the entire humanitarian system is in tatters, and people in Gaza are facing starvation, death and disease, is under the scope of Israel’s control," added Oxfam.
It underlined that a meaningful and safe humanitarian response has been made impossible by the Israeli government which is "deliberately blocking and/or undermining" the international aid efforts in Gaza in seven ways.
Some of these include "a total military siege amounting to collective punishment," "an unjustifiably inefficient process of inspection protocols, arbitrary rejections of ‘dual-use items,’" "decimation, destruction and disruption," "attacks on aid workers, humanitarian facilities and aid convoys," "absence of safety and forced displacement," and "systematic denial of humanitarian missions and access restrictions on humanitarian workers."
According to the report, the Israeli military rejected 25% of aid missions in the south between Jan. 1 and Feb. 12, while 364 health care workers, 165 UN aid workers, and eight humanitarian staff were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7.
Oxfam added that humanitarian access in Gaza has effectively worsened since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to ‘"take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 people.
More than 31,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in the enclave, and nearly 73,800 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water and medicine, while 60%of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the ICJ. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.