Gaza flooded with sweets as fuel and medicine withheld

Gaza flooded with sweets as fuel and medicine withheld, health official warns

While preventing the entry of basic construction materials, the occupying force allows a flow of luxury goods into the Gaza market. (Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor)

Al-Barsh summed up the scene, saying that what enters Gaza “is not aid so much as it is a cruel mockery of death.”

Reposted from Middle East Monitor, April 15, 2026

The director-general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Munir Al-Barsh, has described a catastrophic situation in the besieged enclave, saying that it is being flooded with chocolate and soft drinks while fuel, medicine and basic food are withheld, leaving infants in incubators at constant risk of death.

Al-Barsh said that the situation is not a temporary shortage but a deliberate manipulation of aid, masking ongoing starvation and continued killings despite claims of a ceasefire.

Inside the corridors of Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, where the sounds of medical devices mix with the cries of the wounded, doctors are struggling with a harsh reality: babies in incubators need electricity to survive, yet fuel is unavailable and the aid that arrives does not save them.

Al-Barsh summed up the scene, saying that what enters Gaza “is not aid so much as it is a cruel mockery of death”.

He added: “Trucks carrying jelly arrive, others bring chocolate and soft drinks flow in as if they are a lifeline… but the fuel needed to keep incubators running is still banned.”

At such moments, he said, chocolate means nothing to a child struggling to breathe inside an incubator at risk of shutting down. “Calories” mean nothing to a mother watching a monitor that could switch off at any moment, taking her baby’s life with it.

Al-Barsh stressed that the situation is not random but a “systematic design” creating a compounded disaster. “Flooding Gaza with non-essential goods while denying the essentials of life… this is not relief, it is silent extermination,” he said.

The Middle East Monitor is a not-for-profit press monitoring organisation and lobbying group that emerged in mid-2009. MEMO is largely focused on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict but writes about other issues in the Middle East, as well.

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