KUCHING, Apr 9: There is very little joy to be found in the Gaza Strip during the holy month of Ramadan, as Israel continues to conduct airstrikes on families gathering during iftar, said Jonathan Crickx, Chief of Communications for United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) State of Palestine.
He added that this year’s Ramadan in Gaza is very different than the ones before, as Palestinians try to observe fasting amidst the catastrophic conditions brought on by the six-month old war.
“People are fasting also because they don’t have access to enough food. For 60 to 70 percent of the households in Gaza that we surveyed before Ramadan, they had access to only one meal per day.
“When iftars are taking place, it’s of course a moment to gather the family, but there is very little joy.
“It’s also important to note that (our) colleagues are telling us that many bombardments are taking place during iftar,” he said during a Dialog TVS Plus interview recorded on Apr 2.
In addition to the extreme shortage of food during Ramadan, there is also not enough nutritional variety and diversity in the types of food available to Palestinians in the enclave, according to Jonathan.
“The diversity of the diet is extremely limited.
“You have no vegetables and absolutely no meat, especially in northern Gaza. Most of the people are eating just a bit of rice and flour that they use to make bread.
“This is also a very impactful situation for the nutrition of the children. It is important to have a diverse diet to address severe acute malnutrition,” he explained.
Moreover, many of the 1.3 million people currently in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, who were displaced from other parts of the Gaza Strip due to the conflict, were unable to celebrate the month of Ramadan with their extended families, Jonathan said.
Since the start of the conflict in October 2023, more than 33,100 Palestinian civilians have been killed, with 70 per cent of them being women and children, and 75,800 wounded.
The cost of damage to critical infrastructure in the enclave is estimated at around $18.5 billion (RM88 billion), according to a report by the World Bank and the United Nations.
UNICEF and other UN humanitarian aid agencies, said Jonathan, are now focused on delivering critical life-saving aid such as food, water and medical supplies to try to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.-TVS
