CNN
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In Deir al-Bala, central Gaza, dozens of Palestinian children eagerly watch under the bright sun as aid workers unload giant pots of stew and rice from parked trucks. There was a line for food.
CNN footage showed World Central Kitchen (WCK) staff serving children at a distribution site in front of a vast evacuation center on Wednesday. More children watched from high balconies where clothes hung in the laundry.
Palestinian mother Umm Hassan told CNN that her toddler was grateful to receive a plate of hot rice. Their family had been surviving on canned food for weeks.
World Central Kitchen, a U.S.-based nonprofit focused on fighting hunger around the world, was forced into action in April following a series of Israeli military attacks that killed seven of its employees and drew worldwide condemnation. The group resumed operations in Gaza this week. The Israeli military has previously taken responsibility for the deaths, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledging in a rare public appearance and vowing to investigate the “tragic incident”.
Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen, said on Wednesday that returning to Gaza after losing staff was not easy, but the organization could not “stand by” and watch the people of Gaza suffer. I wrote.
“The decision to resume feeding in Gaza is both the most difficult and the simplest we can make,” Andres wrote to X. “It's difficult, because it's only been a month since seven of our WCK colleagues were killed in an IDF attack. We risked everything because the need is so great. You can not.”
Human rights organizations have long warned that a seven-month offensive by Israeli forces, launched in response to the Hamas-led October 7 terrorist attack, would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. As of May 1, more than 34,600 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli military attacks in the Gaza Strip, according to the local Ministry of Health.
According to the United Nations, more than 1.9 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced during the war, many in crammed tent camps without adequate sanitation or food.
According to the Ministry of Health, the entire population of more than 2.2 million people is now at risk of starvation, and at least 30 children have already died from malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza.
Local WCK staffer Ashraf Al-Sultan told CNN on Wednesday that people at the Deir Al-Balah shelter were clearly suffering.
“Since we resumed operations yesterday, we have seen the desperation of people. People have no food and we are all forced to evacuate,” he said.
“[The World Central Kitchen’s] Food makes people feel at home. It's decent food, it's clean. They also treat people well. ”
“We couldn't provide hot meals for a month because our kitchen team was attacked. We only had canned food,” Zaki Sobe, a boy at the shelter who received a plate of food on Wednesday, told CNN. Ta.
“Thank you and may God protect them.”
Human rights groups have repeatedly warned that Israel's strict restrictions on access to Gaza are depleting vital supplies and severely hampering relief efforts in the Palestinian territory.
In March, UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned that Israel's continued restrictions on aid to Gaza could amount to a war crime of starvation.
Israel says there is “no limit” to the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime for aid trucks means that only a fraction of the amount of food and other supplies that flowed into Gaza each day before the war were released. Only 30,000 people are flowing into Gaza. I'm in now.
Shortly after the death of a World Central Kitchen employee in April, Israeli authorities agreed to open the Erez border crossing into northern Gaza to allow aid deliveries. Food shortages are the worst since Israel launched a barrage of military attacks early in the war.
On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the opening of Erez was “essential” to “increase the amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
But efforts to increase aid have repeatedly run into trouble. At least 48 aid trucks were intercepted on Wednesday after Israeli settlers attacked a convoy en route to Gaza via the southern Kerem Shalom crossing, Jordanian authorities said.
The US State Department also announced Thursday that aid supplies that passed through the Erez crossing earlier this week were briefly intercepted by Hamas, which controls the isolated enclave, before being recovered by the United Nations.
CNN's Jennifer Hansler, Tim Lister, Eugenia Yosef, Mohamed Tawfiq and Johnny Hallam contributed to this report.