Six Killed in Israeli Attack in Gaza Targeting Community Kitchen
Gaza (Quds News Network)- At least six people were killed on Friday in an Israeli attack targeting a community kitchen near Al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City, amid an Israeli blockade that has now entered its third month, with the enclave on the brink of “full-scale famine conditions.”
At least six people were killed in the Israeli attack, with local sources confirming that four missiles targeted the community kitchen. The sources also reported that several others were injured, some of them seriously.
The community kitchen is run by the Qawafil AlKhair Association.
The attack came as hundreds of thousands of Gazans rely on just a few dozen remaining kitchens for their daily meals. Since March 2, Israel has kept Gaza’s main crossings closed, halting the flow of food, medical aid, and other humanitarian supplies.
This blockade has caused a severe and unprecedented decline in living conditions, with human rights organizations accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
“International law is unequivocal: as the occupying power, Israel must allow humanitarian support in. Aid, and the civilian lives it saves, should never be a bargaining chip,” Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said in a statement.
He said blocking aid starves civilians and leaves them without basic medical support, adding that it strips them of dignity and hope and “inflicts a cruel collective punishment. Blocking aid kills.
“The humanitarian movement is independent, impartial and neutral. We believe that all civilians are equally worthy of protection,” said Fletcher.
Dr. Munir al-Bursh, Director of Gaza’s Health Ministry, called on the UN on Thursday to formally declare a state of famine in the Palestinian enclave.
“We call on the United Nations to issue an official declaration of famine in Gaza, given that field indicators and medical and humanitarian data confirm that international conditions for this have been met,” he said.
According to al-Bursh:
91 percent of Palestinians in Gaza are facing a food crisis two months after Israel closed the crossings.
92 percent of children and breastfeeding mothers in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition.
65 percent of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip do not have access to clean drinking water.
Jonathan Whittall, head of OCHA in Gaza, warned on Saturday that the Palestinian enclave is on the brink of “full-scale famine conditions”.
“The coming days in Gaza are going to be critical. Today, people are not surviving in Gaza. Those that aren’t being killed with bombs and bullets are slowly dying,” Whittall told journalists at a news conference in Gaza City.
“As humanitarians, we can see that aid is being weaponised through its denial,” he said. “There’s no justification for the denial of humanitarian assistance.”
Whittall also confirmed that the WFP’s stockpiles in Gaza are exhausted and said “there are no meaningful food distributions currently happening in” the Strip.
Recently, the UN’s World Food Programme and Unrwa, the agency for Palestinian refugees, said they had used up all their stocks of food aid.
Israel also resumed its genocide in Gaza on March 18, killed over 2,200 Palestinians and wounded more than 5,700—mostly children and women, according the Palestinian Health Ministry.
According to the Gaza Government Media Office on Friday, since the start of the assault in 2023, the Israeli occupation has targeted 29 community kitchens as part of its “starvation policy.” In total, 37 aid and food distribution centers have been targeted, with Israel employing hunger as a weapon of war.
