With Palestinians being deliberately starved by Israel in Gaza, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) has joined more than 760 Palestinian civil society and global human rights organisations to urge all states – including Australia – to form a global humanitarian convoy to accompany aid trucks waiting to enter the besieged territory.
Israel has prevented more than 3000 aid trucks containing 116,000 metric tonnes of food from accessing Gaza via the Rafah crossing for 80 days. The trickle of aid now being allowed into the territory is grossly inadequate to support the population: earlier this week, of five trucks that were allowed to enter, two contained shrouds and no food.
Israel’s weaponisation of aid and its moves to dismantle the UN’s aid distribution system and replace it with a US-backed aid system run by private contractors are abhorrent acts of collective punishment, ultimately aimed at the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Already, 92% of Palestinian children under the age of two, and breastfeeding women in Gaza are not receiving adequate nutrition. Children are going to bed starving, and 14,000 babies are at risk of dying if they don’t receive urgent aid.
About half a million Palestinians in Gaza are already at risk of famine – the “worst humanitarian emergency.”
In fact, a recent Doctors of the World (Médecins du Monde) report noted that acute malnutrition in Gaza over just 18 months reached levels comparable to those seen in countries experiencing protracted humanitarian crises spanning several decades.
The World Health Organisation has confirmed that 57 children have already died of malnutrition.
Israel is brazenly defying, yet again, the foundational principles of international law, including the International Court of Justice’s provision measures that were issued in January 2024.
Australia and its allies must start taking action to halt this humanitarian and genocidal emergency and senseless destruction of human life.
APAN joins its allies across the globe in demanding the following historic steps:
- We call on all states to join the humanitarian convoy by dispatching official diplomatic missions to accompany the aid trucks into Gaza via the Rafah Crossing.
- States must also reject the weaponisation of aid and Israel’s planned distribution mechanisms, which militarise relief efforts and bypass UN agencies and humanitarian actors.
- We urge all states to coordinate with the UN and the Government of Egypt to facilitate the convoy’s entry and ensure the immediate, unhindered, and safe passage of humanitarian aid, medical teams, and relief workers.
- While some governments complicit in the ongoing atrocities may choose not to participate, we call on individual diplomats, parliamentarians, and ministers from those countries to join the convoy in their personal capacities.
- We urge international media outlets to accompany the convoy – to bear witness, to document the famine, and to expose the blockade starving Gaza.
- We call on global civil society, including NGOs, trade unions, student groups, political parties, and solidarity networks, to mobilise immediately – to pressure governments to support the convoy and provide material, political, and public support.
- We call on the UN to urgently complete the necessary assessments and procedures required to declare Gaza a famine zone, based on verified data, and to support this unified call by actively facilitating, endorsing, and joining the Diplomatic Humanitarian Convoy.
Read more about the Unified Call to Confront Famine in Gaza here.
Comments attributed to APAN President Nasser Mashni:
“We are now witnessing on an almost daily basis tiny, emaciated children dying as their shellshocked parents look on in helplessness and desperation.
“Finding food in Gaza is now an impossible quest, with food prices at eye-watering levels, and families having to resort to grinding pasta into flour in order to make bread for their children.
“How we can tolerate or accept that Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians is beyond understanding.
“The Australian government must start complying with its international obligations, and send a diplomatic mission to accompany these waiting aid trucks into Gaza.
“Australia must no longer sit idly by, or plead impotence, as long as diplomatic, political and economic tools exist to compel Israel to end its genocide.
“This convoy is a critical tool for this moment, and Australia must heed this global cry for immediate and principled action.”