Gazans facing starvation and Israeli aggression say they are afraid to walk the distance to an aid center out of fear that they may “die on the way or be shot,” says Mara Kronenfeld, executive director of UNRWA USA, which provides support for the humanitarian work of the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees.
“They are having to make that choice: Do I risk death or do I try to find some food to feed my children?” she said.
Neighbors are fainting in the streets and aid workers themselves don’t have enough food to get energy to continue the work they are doing, she said.
Kronenfeld criticized Israel’s response on the starvation crisis as “disingenuous at best and dark and cynical at worst.”
Israel has denied creating famine in Gaza and accused Hamas of “engineering” food shortages.
“UNRWA has the equivalent of 6000 trucks of aid, emergency aid and medicine sitting just outside the border. Let that aid in,” Kronenfeld said.
Israel’s blockade is creating a restriction on food and aid availability, which is increasing food prices and the “possibility that people might hoard it,” she noted.
One in five children in Gaza City are facing malnutrition, she said, describing “a catastrophic, indescribable situation on the ground in Gaza.”
Kronenfeld also said that the aid distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation “is a drop in the bucket.” It has four distribution sites in southern Gaza, so the sick, elderly, young and disabled people have walk far to get that aid, which has resulted in deaths and injuries, she pointed.
Meanwhile, UNRWA has 400 sites and they distribute aid to people where they are with “transparency, integrity and with the dignity of those who are receiving aid,” Kronenfeld said.
