For more than five months, 15,000 boxes of children’s cold medicine and other vital medicines meant for kids in the Gaza Strip have been sitting in a warehouse, awaiting approval from Israeli authorities that never seems to come.
To Israeli officials, the cold medicine I am trying to deliver is a potential weapon. Israeli officials fear Hamas will steal the bottles and transform the small amounts of glycerin in the medicine to make explosives, despite there being no evidence they have done or could do this. The medicine remains in a warehouse while children in Gaza continue to die.
Since the ceasefire was announced in October, Israel has embarked on a quieter war on the people of Gaza, with continued airstrikes and by making our work as humanitarians near impossible.
Since October, Israel demolished at least 2,500 buildings in the area it occupies. Israel is estimated to have destroyed or demolished more than 80% of the buildings in the Gaza Strip by last fall. Displaced families now live in vast tent settlements, where they face malnutrition, hunger and the spread of disease.
The prospect of Israel allowing Palestinians to return to their homes is fading. We see Israeli government officials encouraging activists to establish Jewish settlements on land inside Gaza that would be part of a future Palestinian state.