Fear and despair rise in Gaza as seven-week Israeli blockade bites

Gaza has been pushed to new depths of despair, civilians, medics and humanitarian workers say, by the unprecedented seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off all aid to the strip.

- Bethan McKernan

• Palestinians denied aid as bombs still fall

• People more afraid of famine than airstrikes

The siege has left the Palestinian territory facing conditions unmatched in severity since the beginning of the war as residents grapple with sweeping new evacuation orders, the renewed bombing of civilian infra-structure such as hospitals, and the exhaustion of food, fuel for genera-tors and medical supplies.

Israel unilaterally abandoned a two-month ceasefire with Palestinian militant group Hamas on 2 March, cutting off vital supplies. Just over two weeks later, it resumed large-scale bombing and redeployed ground troops withdrawn during the truce.

Since then, political figures and security officials have repeatedly vowed that aid deliveries will not resume until Hamas releases the remaining hostages seized during the 7 October 2023 attacks that ignited the conflict. Israel's government has framed the new siege as a security measure and has repeatedly denied using starvation as a weapon, which would constitute a war crime.

The blockade is now entering its eighth week, making it the longest continuous total siege the strip has faced to date in the 18-month war.

Firmly supported by the US, its most important ally under Donald Trump, Israel appears confident that it can maintain the siege with little international pushback.

It is also moving ahead with large-scale seizures of Palestinian land for security buffer zones, and plans to shift control of aid delivery to the army and private contractors, exacerbating fears in Gaza that Israel intends to maintain boots on the ground in the territory long-term and permanently displace its residents.