Hello, everybody. My name is Dr. Aliya Khan, and I am a board member of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations. We provide relief in war zones. I personally have traveled to the West Bank, and I have seen the brutal occupation that the Palestinian people have been suffering over the past 75 years. Over the past 21 months, we have witnessed Israel's war of extermination with mass slaughter of the Palestinian people, as well as the bombing and complete destruction of all the universities, schools, mosques, churches, and hospitals in Gaza. All the water wells, including the Canada well, and all sanitation facilities have been destroyed. All olive groves, farmland, and farm animals have been completely destroyed. Healthcare workers and journalists have been specifically targeted, tortured, and murdered..

Emergency Starvation Crisis in Gaza

On March 2nd, Israel imposed a complete ban on the entry of food, water, and medical aid to Gaza. Even baby formula was banned. We are seeing babies and children being starved to death. This is inhumane. This is barbaric and cannot be allowed to continue in a civilized world.

Starving Palestinians are now collapsing in the streets, and they are dying of hunger and dehydration. This is a medical emergency. We cannot allow this to continue for more than a day or two.

Over the next five days alone, more than 550 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Ministry of Health figures. The confirmed death toll since the beginning of this war of extermination has now reached more than 60,000. And this is a vast undercount, as it does not include those buried under the rubble. The true death toll has been estimated to be more than 300,000. More than half of this death toll is children.

Over the past two months, more than a thousand Palestinians have been killed desperately trying to obtain food at one of these Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, which are in fact militarized zones where civilians are shot at by U.S. and Israeli soldiers as they desperately try to obtain food and water. Palestinians have no choice but to starve to death or risk their life at the so-called aid distribution centers.

Philip Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees, said on social media that this crisis is all man-made, in total impunity. Lazzarini posted, “Food is available only a few kilometers away. UNRWA alone has enough stock available outside of Gaza for the entire population for the next three months.” But they have not been allowed to bring in any aid since March 2nd.

Hospitals in Gaza no longer have any food for patients and have run out of medical supplies. The Rantisi Hospital has hundreds of sick children with no food to feed them in the hospital. These are unacceptable war crimes, and Israel's war of extermination must end now.

We demand Canada take action with like-minded nations and the United Nations on behalf of the defenseless civilians—half of whom are children—in Gaza.

We demand the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in Gaza with urgent and immediate delivery of food, water, and medical aid. This must be led by the UN. There must be an immediate end to the ongoing bombing of the civilian population of Gaza.

We must immediately allow the thousands of trucks waiting outside the border into Gaza. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation uses aid as an opportunity to shoot and kill more civilians and has been described as a "death trap" by Francesca Albanese, the UN Rapporteur.

This must be immediately replaced by delivery of food by the United Nations and through Canadian medical relief organizations with good standing. Thank you.