Editorial: When will it end?

The latest from Gaza is typically horrendous. Babies are starving as the death toll of innocent civilians rises daily.

Mothers lack baby formula to feed their newborns. How do those mothers and fathers feel? I can’t imagine it.

The world watches on as genocide plays out in the age of overwhelming digital communication.

Nobody should be able to say that they are not aware of it.

On Tuesday, according to the UN, aid is “trickling into Gaza after nearly three months of blockade, but it remains far from enough to meet the soaring humanitarian needs”

UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric explain on Tuesday that the assistance must be delivered swiftly and directly to those most in need. He told journalists in New York that UN humanitarians were sending flour, medicines, nutrition supplies and other basic items through the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing – a day after they managed to bring in baby formula and other nutrition supplies.

“The first trucks of vital baby food are now inside Gaza after 11 weeks of total blockade, and it is urgent that we get that assistance distributed. We need much, much more to cross,” he said from New York.

It’s only this week that the EU seem to have really started to put meaningful pressure on Israel despite the imposition of a total blockade since 2 March creating a huge risk of widespread famine. Finally Israel started to allow a token handful of aid trucks to enter Gaza on Monday, while “simultaneously intensifying its military offensive,” according to the UN.

“The aid blockade has pushed the entire population, more than two million people, to the brink of famine, amid ongoing bombardment and recurrent displacement orders,” they said.

Yesterday Sinn Féin spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire TD condemned the recent attacks by Israel on Gaza as well as the starvation of the population.

He said: “What we are seeing in Gaza is utterly horrifying. 48 people killed overnight, 22 of them children. No humanitarian aid has been delivered to Gaza since 2 March, and a global hunger monitor has warned that half a million people face starvation, a quarter of the population.

“Israel proposed last week that private companies would take over handing out aid in Gaza's south once an expanded Israeli offensive starts in its war there.

“It is clear that this plan by Israel is not sincere. The UN has criticised this Israel-initiated and US-backed humanitarian aid distribution plan for Gaza as a ‘fig leaf for further violence and displacement’ of Palestinians and called it ‘a cynical sideshow’ and ‘a deliberate distraction.”

On Monday, the Gaza Health Ministry released a 1,000 page document with the names and ages of 52,959 Palestinians killed in Gaza. For the first 100 pages (over 5,000 names), the age is listed at 5 years or younger. The first 18 pages the age is listed as 0 (under 1 year).

Let that sink in.