The announcement of the opening of the Rafah crossing has yet to materialise, the Gaza Strip is running out of everything, and the WHO warns: “24 hours from catastrophe.”
The World Health Organization has not minced its words: the Gaza Strip is running out of everything — water, food, medicines and fuel. And above all, "catastrophe is 24 hours away." At least 600,000 Palestinians (as many as one million according to Al Jazeera's estimate) have abandoned their homes in the north of the Strip and in Gaza City over the past few days, following instructions issued by Israel last Friday, a week after the attacks carried out by Hamas extremist militants in Israel. Meanwhile, the Rafah crossing, in the south of the Gaza Strip, remains closed and people are trapped inside the Strip with no basic necessities left.
A stream of people crossed the Wadi Gaza by any means possible in order to seek shelter from the bombardment and a possible ground attack: Israel continues to drop bombs from the air (over 6,000 bombs dropped so far, with a total yield calculated at a quarter of what a single nuclear bomb would release). The long-awaited ground offensive, however, has not yet begun: partly out of fear that an invasion would lead to the immediate killing of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, which today pledged to release them "if Israel stops the siege of Gaza," and partly due to ongoing negotiations and pressure from the international community. United States President Joe Biden warned that an Israeli occupation of Gaza would be a "serious mistake" while reiterating that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. And if the WHO says catastrophe is 24 hours away even though the full-scale offensive has not yet begun, the situation is already tragic.
After a deafeningly silent Sunday, the new week had opened with two important announcements that appeared to be heading in the right direction, but which remained on paper only.
The first concerned the announcement, made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, of the opening of the Rafah crossing to allow the transit of foreign nationals and Palestinians holding dual passports out of the Gaza Strip, and the entry of essential goods such as water, food and fuel. It was then held back, most likely due to a "no" from Israeli ministers of the Likud party and concerns on the part of the Egyptian authorities about an uncontrolled influx of Palestinians. Energy Minister Israel Katz said he was opposed to "the opening of the crossing and the introduction of goods into Gaza for humanitarian reasons" because "our commitment is to the families of the hostages who were murdered and kidnapped, not to Hamas murderers and those who aided them." And, to make matters worse, in the evening a bomb dropped by Israel itself struck the crossing: fortunately, no casualties or injuries have been reported at this time.
Culture Minister Miki Zohar also opposed the move: "Those who massacre children, rape women and kidnap infants deserve no mercy." The effect was to leave thousands of people piled up on one side of the border, and tonnes of aid on the other.
The second announcement had come once again from the Israeli Energy Minister, who declared that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and United States President Joe Biden had agreed that it was appropriate to resume drinking water supplies to the southern areas of Gaza in order to address the severe humanitarian crisis after ten days of siege. Almost immediately, however, Palestinians pointed out that the words about restoring the water supply were nothing more than a "publicity stunt," given that many pipes had been damaged by the bombardment. Furthermore, without electricity, the water pumps needed to fill the tanks cannot function. In practice, therefore, water supplies had also not resumed over the course of the day, despite an appeal to that effect from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) itself.
Meanwhile, US and Israeli officials are discussing the possibility of an upcoming visit to Israel by President Biden at the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, a source close to the matter said on Sunday. A visit by Biden, Reuters explains, would be intended to demonstrate support for the United States' closest ally in the Middle East, and would follow a similar visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is currently in the region.
The United States, however, are naturally not the only ones making their voices heard. Indeed, in the game of mutual recriminations, Russia is accusing the White House of being "the primary responsible party" for the escalation of violence that has unfolded over the past ten days: so at least according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who reportedly told the Russian agency Tass that "the United States for many years attempted to monopolise the solution, ignoring the relevant Security Council resolutions, and are now preventing a solution from being found."
And for Tehran, Washington is not only morally but also "operationally already in practice part of the conflict." An accusation that is not, for the moment, reciprocal: Biden, in his attempt to defuse any friction, explained that at present "there is no evidence of Iran's involvement" in last Friday's attacks.
