Senate Testimony on the humanitarian situation in Gaza
Oxfam Canada was invited to testify at the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
October 8, 2025
Oxfam Canada
Dear Senators,
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
For two years, we have watched a humanitarian crisis in Gaza spiral into a catastrophe. Today, it is widely acknowledged as a genocide.
"A graveyard for children". "A post-apocalyptic killing field". "Hell on earth" These are just some of the ways Gaza has been described by leaders of humanitarian agencies.
90% of homes have been damaged or destroyed, health facilities have been regularly targeted, and more than 80% of Gaza's water infrastructure has been decimated. All of this, in contravention to international humanitarian law. The ICRC says that the situation in Gaza surpasses "any acceptable, legal, moral, and humane standard". In twenty years of humanitarian work, I have never seen anything like this.
Food, water, medicine, and other items essential to survival have been continuously blocked by Israel from entering Gaza. For those who are still alive, they try to survive in the most literal sense of the word. This includes our 40 staff members inside Gaza and their families.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Report released in August confirmed famine in Gaza City, and acute hunger in most other parts of the Gaza strip. The first famine in the history of the Middle East, entirely engineered and preventable. And while some food has been delivered through the highly problematic Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, this has come at the cost of almost three thousand lives lost as people were targeted while seeking aid.
Mohammad, a Palestinian injured at a militarized distribution site, describes seeking aid from the GHF. He says:
"We've been displaced for the tenth time to Al-Mawasi. The kids wake up asking for food. There is none. I had no choice but to go to the aid distribution points. We run five or six kilometres just to get there. Everyone lies flat on the ground. No one is allowed to stand. If you lift your head, you are shot right between the eyes. I have seen death five, six, seven times. You eat your food soaked in blood. Do you know what it means to eat food soaked in blood?"
Today, Palestinians in Gaza continue to be subject to relentless violence in every form. At militarized distribution points, by drones and quadcopters that stalk them during the days, and airstrikes that haunt their nights.
Our role as NGOs is to try and provide some assistance in the face of immense obstacles and to do so in a manner that still affords communities some dignity. We have done so with support from the Canadian government and thousands of Canadians, but the situation continues to deteriorate.
Our office in Gaza City remains open despite the displacement orders, the complete blockade since March 2025 and heightened attacks of recent weeks. My colleague Motaz describes the situation as a "nightmare with no end in sight".
Our staff continue to provide assistance to people in need, while they themselves are displaced numerous times. But they are obstructed from doing so at every step of the way through onerous processes and ever-changing guidelines for receiving humanitarian supplies. Other bureaucratic obstructions include "dual use" designations and the new INGO registration guidelines. Oxfam has over $3m in supplies waiting at the border that have been blocked from entry for months.
Even locally provided services, such as water trucking, function with great difficulty. Attacks are persistent, roads are impassable, fuel is scarce and people are often on the move especially as Israel continues its seizure of Gaza City.
The international protections afforded to civilians during times of war have not been applied nor respected in Gaza. Israel violates international law in Gaza, but also in the West Bank where Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed from their homes by state policy and settler violence. The expansion of settlements, considered a war crime by international law and unlawful by Canada's own foreign policy, are the direct root of the humanitarian crisis that we are responding to.
Since August, we and our supporters have sent Prime Minister Carney over 33,000 letters demanding Canada uphold international law by taking 3 concrete measures. First by ensuring a full arms embargo on Canadian made arms and arms components, including those going to Israel through the US. Second, by canceling the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, and finally by using every diplomatic channel and economic lever available to promote accountability to international law and to demand safe, principled and unimpeded humanitarian access.
Senators, humanitarian assistance can alleviate suffering, but aid alone will not solve the genocide in Gaza nor ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Canada must act with resolve and immediacy. We are counting on your support.
Thank you for your time.
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