Israel allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza last week while pinning its hopes of assuaging condemnation of the two-month-long blockade of the territory by this week permitting the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed logistics group, to begin rigidly controlled deliveries that are barely a drop in the ocean of what the population needs.
While foreign journalists remain unable to report from Gaza, our correspondents Jason Burke, in Jerusalem, and Malek A Tantesh, who is based in Gaza, have written a powerful report on life in Gaza City for this week’s cover story. Even as attacks continue, more and more civilians move into the city, pushed out from northern Gaza as Israel’s new offensive intensifies. Life has been reduced to the very basics with, as the head of the Gaza NGOs Network, Amjad Shawa, put it, people “living in rubbish dumps, cesspits. There are flies, mosquitoes. We have no water to deliver, no food, no tents or blankets or tarpaulins, nothing. People are very, very hungry but there is nothing to give them.”
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