How cruel is the Israeli siege on Gaza? the IDF spokesperson’s tweets can give an idea.
I follow the IDF spokesperson on twitter (tweets are in English, btw). Every few days, there is an update there on the humanitarian aid and fuel trucks intended to pass through the Erez crossing point into Gaza.
Here are some examples:
Jan 14: #IDF: 108 aid trucks and supply of fuel and natural gas scheduled to cross into #Gaza today. Erez Xing open.
Jan 13: 171 aid trucks and a supply of fuel scheduled to cross into #Gaza today. Erez Xing open.
Jan 11: 74 aid trucks and supply of fuel and natural gas scheduled to cross into #Gaza today through Erez Xing
There are some Israelis who Re-tweet these messages to their followers. Some Israeli embassies do that too. I guess they see it as further evidence to Israel’s claim that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the siege. But the truth is that these numbers tell a totally different story.
There are no natural resources in the strip and hardly any food is grown there, so all the population is dependent on supply of food, fuel and gas from the outside. The economy is on hold since the war, and 80 percent of the people live on humanitarian aid.
According to the CIA factbook, there are 1,551,859 people living in Gaza.
Let’s take the best day of the month, according to the IDF. That was Jan 13, in which 171 trucks crossed the border into Gaza. That’s 171 trucks for 1.5 million people, or one truck for 9,075 people (1,551,859 divided by 171). Now imagine having to feed, give clothing and supply heating and power to 9,075 people – like the population of a not so small US town – with a single truck.
Another example: On Jan 11, 74 fuel trucks crossed into Gaza. That’s one truck for 20,971 people. A fuel truck carries between 5,500 and 9,000 US gallons, or 20,000 to 34,000 liters. That means between 0.43 and 0.26 gallons of fuel/gas per person. Even if you consider the fact that Gaza households are fairly big, and that the local population’s needs are very modest, how much power can you supply with that? No wonder 95 percent of Gaza’s factories are not working. And again, these are the IDF numbers, not mine.
From what I hear, humanitarian organizations claim that 300 trucks of aid are needed daily to provide the minimum needs of the population of Gaza. This means one truck for 5,172 people. Try to imagine keeping 5,172 people alive for whole day on the supply of a single truck (and that includes providing power, shelter and clothing). Even if you assume that everything is distributed equally, and that nothing is lost on the way – which, as we know, is never the case in real life – it’s not an easy task.
Now consider this: according to all sources I know, there haven’t been a single day in which 300 trucks of supply entered Gaza. I’ve looked back on the IDF spokesperson’s tweets, and didn’t find a single day in which even 200 trucks entered Gaza. And there are many days in which Erez crossing is closed, and not a single truck enters the strip.
Even if you think that the Palestinians “had it coming” after electing Hamas, you must understand what’s going on here: Israel and Egypt have turned Gaza into the largest prison in the world, in which they keep 1.5 million – same as the entire population of Philadelphia – on the verge of starvation.