Statement by the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory – on principled aid delivery in Gaza

Statement by the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory – on principled aid delivery in Gaza

East Jerusalem and Gaza city, 4 May 2025

For nine weeks now, Israeli authorities have blocked all supplies from entering Gaza, no matter how vital to people’s survival. Bakeries have shut. Community kitchens have closed. Warehouses stand empty. Children have gone hungry.

Israeli officials have sought to shut down the existing aid distribution system run by the United Nations and its humanitarian partners and have us agree to deliver supplies through Israeli hubs under conditions set by the Israeli military, once the government agrees to re-open crossings.

The design of the plan presented to us will mean large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies. It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy. It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement.

The UN Secretary-General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator have made clear that we will not participate in any scheme that does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality. In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the heads of all UN entities and non-governmental organizations under the Humanitarian Country Team have unanimously affirmed this position. Humanitarian action responds to people’s needs, wherever they are.

Our teams remain in Gaza, ready to again scale up the delivery of critical supplies and services: food, water, health, nutrition, protection and more. We have significant stocks ready to enter as soon as the blockade is lifted.

We urge world leaders to use their influence to make that happen. The time is now.

Ends

For media requests, please contact Ilona Gaudin at +972 54 3311835 or gaudin2@un.org.

* The Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) is a strategic decision-making forum led by the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It brings together heads of UN entities and NGOs – both international and Palestinian – all working on humanitarian affairs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under internationally agreed humanitarian principles.

Starving in Gaza

Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 11 Palestinians so far today, with deadly attacks reported in Khan Younis, Beit Lahia and Gaza City. The strikes follow Israeli attacks that killed 54 Palestinians on Monday, and as the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, reported some 66,000 children in Gaza are suffering severe malnutrition due to Israel’s total blockade of food and aid, now in its ninth week. Some Palestinians have resorted to eating turtle meat, grass or rotten or expired food. This is a displaced Palestinian mother in Gaza City.

Montasira al-Kafarneh: “What I’m doing now is trying to separate rice from bulgur and stones. As you can see, we’re forced to eat stones because there is no flour, no food, no water. Nothing reaches us, not even aid. As you can see, I’m sorting this just to silence my children’s hunger. The kids are crying all the time from hunger. This is bird feed. It’s not fit for human consumption, but we cook it to quiet the children’s cries.”

May 6. Democracy Now!

Al Mezan Issues New Fact Sheet on Gaza’s Deepening Water Crisis yeah your tire house

Al Mezan Issues New Fact Sheet on Gaza’s Deepening Water Crisis

 

Gaza, 30 April 2025 – Al Mezan has released a new fact sheet detailing the rapidly deteriorating water crisis in Gaza. As Israel’s nearly two-month sweeping blockade of Gaza and closure of all crossings continue, the collapse of the water and sanitation sector is not merely an imminent risk—it is the manifestation of a deliberately engineered humanitarian catastrophe, whose genocidal intent becomes more apparent with each passing day.

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have destroyed approximately 70% of Gaza’s water infrastructure, including desalination plants, pipelines, and water wells, effectively dismantling Gaza’s capacity to supply its population with clean water. Furthermore, approximately 180 kilometers of water networks have been fully or partially destroyed. The scale and precision of this destruction reflect a systematic campaign aimed at obliterating the civilian infrastructure necessary for the survival of Gaza’s population.

The fact sheet focuses on the deliberate measures undertaken by the Israeli government since the reimposition of a total closure on Gaza on 2 March 2025. These include the complete cessation of delivery of humanitarian aid—including food, water, fuel, and medical supplies—alongside the targeted dismantling of critical water infrastructure. As a result, over two million Palestinians, including one million children, are being denied access to sufficient, safe drinking water.

Al Mezan’s fact sheet documents the calculated cutting of electricity to Gaza’s largest desalination facility, the severing of water pipelines operated by Mekorot (Israel’s national water company), and the continuing prohibition of fuel required to power water wells, sewage systems, and sanitation services by Israeli authorities. These actions have compounded an already dire situation, pushing Gaza’s population toward conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part—conduct that aligns with acts defined as genocide under the Genocide Convention.

The fact sheet also includes testimonies from affected civilians, reflecting the immense hardship and suffering they endure in securing even minimal amounts of water. Al Mezan warns that unless the international community takes immediate and concrete steps to end Israel’s blockade and closure of Gaza, full reopening of all crossings, restore humanitarian access, and ensure protection of vital civilian infrastructure, Gaza’s water distribution system will soon collapse. The organization cautions that without intervention, widespread death from dehydration and starvation is imminent.

The factsheet concludes with a list of recommendations addressed to states, international organizations, and UN bodies. 

The fact sheet is available here

The fact sheet (PDF) is available here

To read the press release, please click, here

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Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental  

human rights organization in the Gaza Strip, with Special Consultative status with the

United Nations Economic and Social Council. Since its establishment in 1999.

Al Mezan has been dedicated to protecting and advancing the respect of human rights,

and enhancing democracy, community and citizen participation in Palestine, particularly

in the Gaza Strip. 

 

Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights

5/1101 Al Mena – Omar El Mukhtar Street

Gaza City, Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine

P.O. Box 5270

Telefax: +970 8 2820447 / 2820442

mezan@palnet.com

info@mezan.org

www.mezan.org

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