Geneva, Switzerland (VOA) —
UN officials say Palestinians in Gaza are in a state of despair after nearly three months of bombardment by Israeli military attacks and left without adequate supplies of food, water and medicine.
“The level of community desperation is palpable and palpable. “This is a situation of despair that you can feel, that you can literally touch with your hands,” said Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Speaking from Jerusalem to journalists in Geneva on Friday (12/1), De Domenico said hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were crammed into increasingly small spaces and forced to set up temporary shelters in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, without toilets or other basic facilities. .
Palestinian farmers inspect a greenhouse farm after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike, in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, January 11, 2024.
“There are no public services. Lack of shelter, lack of water, lack of food, and lack of health. … This high pressure is increasingly turning into increasing tensions, while the UN and the humanitarian community are no longer able to meet their basic needs,” he said.
“(Desperate Palestinians in Gaza) have not been aggressive so far, but these tensions will increase if we do not step up our operations,” he continued, noting that when supply trucks crossed the border into Gaza, Palestinians would approach the trucks, saying thank you. thank the UN presence (aid) and then “take whatever they can so they and their families can survive.”
An OCHA representative said that their officers on the ground reported that “the faces of the people coming to the (aid) trucks… were clearly the faces of starving people.”
This week will mark 100 days since Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups launched attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, and about 250 hostages, among them two children.
The brutal attacks prompted a vicious response from the Israeli military, which reportedly resulted in the deaths of more than 23,000 Palestinians, about two-thirds of whom were women and children, and the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, including homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship. .
“As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) Volker Turk has repeatedly urged, there must be an immediate ceasefire on human rights and humanitarian grounds,” stressed UNHRC spokesperson Liz Throssell.
It is more urgent than ever for a “ceasefire to end the horrific suffering and loss of life, and to enable the rapid and effective delivery of humanitarian aid to communities facing shocking levels of hunger and disease,” he said.
He added that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “must take immediate action to protect civilians in full line with Israel’s obligations under international law.”
Palestinian children injured in an Israeli attack are treated at a hospital in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, January 12, 2024.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also called for an immediate and long-term ceasefire, stressing that this “is the only way to end the killing and maiming of children and their families and enable the immediate delivery of urgently needed aid. “
Speaking from Jerusalem, Lucia Elmi, UNICEF special representative in the Palestinian territories, warned that conditions in the Gaza Strip – especially for children – continued to deteriorate rapidly.
“Children in Gaza are running out of time, while much of the humanitarian aid they desperately need remains stranded between inadequate access corridors and protracted multi-layered checks,” he said.
“Thousands of children have died and thousands more will soon follow” if problems of conflict, disease and malnutrition are not urgently addressed, he added.
As an illustration, he noted that in the last two weeks, the number of cases of diarrhea in children under five has almost doubled from 40,000 to 70,000.
This conflict, along with the increasing burden of disease and worsening malnutrition, puts more than 135,000 children at risk of severe acute malnutrition.
“The combination of these three problems plus the lack of water and sanitation in relation to malnutrition, is one of the main concerns (of residents in Gaza) currently,” he said. (pp)