Order in Gaza appears to be breaking down – and people are angry at ‘disgraceful’ US move

From Gaza to the West Bank and far beyond, there is a collective anger at the US veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

And the UK’s abstention is seen as tacit support for the continuing Israeli campaign against Hamas, even as aid agencies are lining up to tell the world that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is becoming completely unmanageable and dire.

The warnings that social order is on the brink of disintegrating appears now to be happening.

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Pictures from the Rafah Crossing show one of few aid trucks entering Gaza being mobbed by crowds of people desperate to get their hands on a little food, or anything they can find.

To the west, on the Mediterranean Sea, the people who evacuated to al Mawasi don’t even have the opportunity to attempt to get their hands on aid. There is none.

This former Bedouin settlement, which the IDF says is a safe zone, is a barren wasteland at the best of times – now it’s the worst.

Our team in Gaza visited al Mawasi again and filmed as people tried to set up home in tented camps they’ve built themselves.

There are now hundreds of families in al Mawasi, many of them women and children, living cheek by jowl. They’re only just surviving.

Sami Waleed Keshko and his family first fled Gaza City to Khan Younis, and then as the fighting intensified in the south, they had to flee again.

“It was difficult, but we moved out of Gaza City when the tanks and snipers were on the ground. When you see all these refugees here, don’t think they have willingly moved,” he told Sky News.

“They were displaced against their will when they were under fire and had to flee to save their children.”

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This family’s experience of moving multiple times to try to get away from the fighting is very common. And they, like many, are desperate and angry at what happened at the United Nations.

Sami Waleed Keshko said: “What happened was disgraceful. We expected more pressure, but the US will remain supportive of Israel against us.

“We are poor unarmed people who live in tents as refugees, we were made refugees in 1967 and now again in 2023 when the world is supposed to be more advanced.

“If the resolution was passed and the ceasefire was implemented, things would change and we’d then see that the UN member states had respected the Security Council.”

When – and where – they can, aid agencies do attempt a handout of food parcels – but the reality is what is coming into Gaza is inadequate, and barely scratches the surface.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says more than half of Gaza’s population is “starving”, and that it’s not possible to meet their needs with such active fighting.

What we have seen, day after day, from our daily feed of pictures from our team inside Gaza illustrates just how difficult and dangerous life there has become.

Safe spaces are not actually that safe, the fighting is everywhere, and people are fleeing in large numbers further south with very little help to survive away from home.

There is little sanctuary to be found in Gaza.

And with the US support of Israel, there is no talk of any ceasefire – dashing any hopes of alleviating this all-out humanitarian crisis.