GAZA (Dispatches) – Hundreds of Palestinian women and children took to the streets on Monday in Beit Lahia town in northern Gaza, demanding an immediate end to the ongoing military aggression and aid blockade by the Zionist regime.
The protesters, who walked among the devastated areas, held placards in Arabic reading: “Enough displacement and homelessness,” “Enough killing and destruction,” and “Stop the bloodshed.” They also chanted slogans calling for an end to the Gaza war.
“Our demands are simple: to stop the war and to live in peace and security without the constant fear of death and airstrikes,” Sumaya al-Ghazali, one of the protesters, told Xinhua.
“The international community must bear its responsibility toward the people of Gaza, especially the children who are dying of hunger due to the Israeli-imposed blockade,” the 39-year-old mother of four said.
“We want to eat. We are starving. We want food, flour, and we want the killing to stop,” Ruba Alian, a nine-year-old girl, told Xinhua. “We have the right to live like other children around the world, to return to school, and to enjoy peace and security.”
The Zionist regime has blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2. It then ended a two-month ceasefire on March 18 and resumed deadly air and ground assaults on the enclave.
The renewed Israeli attacks have so far killed 2,222 Palestinians and injured 5,751 others, Gaza health authorities said Monday, adding the death toll in the enclave since the war began in October 2023 has risen to 52,314, with 117,792 injured.
On Friday, the UN World Food Programme said it had run out of food stocks in Gaza, as border crossings remain closed.
On Sunday, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said that its flour supplies in Gaza had been depleted amid continued blockade, and that about 3,000 of its trucks loaded with life-saving aid remain stranded at the border.
Food prices in the Gaza Strip have risen by 527 percent, according to the Chamber of Commerce in the territory, due to the Zionist regime’s blockade and its prevention of goods and humanitarian aid from entering.
In a statement published by Palestinian Information Centre, the chamber explained that the Zionist regime continues to “prevent the entry of private sector trucks, causing an almost complete paralysis of commercial activity.”
It pointed out that people in Gaza are suffering from “deliberate starvation and thirst” being used by regime authorities as a weapon against civilians.
It added that the closure of crossings and the obstruction of humanitarian aid deliveries constitute a policy of “deliberate starvation” imposed on Palestinians.
The chamber warned of a catastrophic collapse of the economic system in Gaza due to the ongoing blockade, stressing that the current situation threatens a long-term humanitarian and social disaster if it continues.