Dozens of community kitchens in Gaza shut down on Thursday after running out of supplies due to the total Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory, which is starving millions of civilians.
Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) in Gaza, told Reuters that the majority of the 170 community kitchens in Gaza have already shut down, and the few remaining will soon run out of supplies.
Just a day earlier, the World Central Kitchen, a US-based charity, announced it was forced to halt operations in Gaza.
“Everyone in Gaza today is hungry. The world must act now to save the people here,” Shawa said. “The remaining kitchens will be closing soon. The hunger catastrophe is beyond words. People are losing their lone source of food.”
Shawa said that people had relied on the community kitchens for one and a half meals per day, but in recent weeks, it was cut down to one single meal. Palestinians who are able to cook for themselves are forced to use expired and contaminated flour. Babies have been suffering, and some have died of malnutrition, since their mothers are struggling to produce breast milk, and Israel is blocking the entry of baby formula.
Israel first imposed its total blockade on March 2, and the collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population has been strongly backed by the US. Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), who was recently elected in the House in a special election for Mike Waltz’s seat, said in a post on X that Palestinians in Gaza should “starve away.”
Reports say Israel is expected to announce a new aid mechanism soon that would involve American private security contractors controlling the aid, a plan the UN and aid groups have said is not sufficient to bring real relief to the starving population.
Israel is planning to establish the aid hubs in southern Gaza, where, under the recently approved plan for the Israeli military to escalate its offensive, Israel plans to “concentrate” the entire civilian population in Gaza before pressuring them to leave the territory. That means Israel will likely use the aid to lure Palestinians to the south as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign.
