“The large-scale death, destruction” and “the pain of the last hundred days” since the start of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas are “a stain on our common humanity,” the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
“It has been one hundred days since this devastating war began, killing and displacing people in Gaza, following horrific attacks by Hamas and other groups against people in Israel. It has been a hundred days of ordeal and anguish for the hostages and their families,” Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement issued while he was in the Palestinian territory.
What the population of Gaza is going through “is unbearable, with a race against time against famine,” warned the senior UN official.
PHOTO MARTIAL TREZZINI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The head of the UN Palestinian refugee aid agency Philippe Lazzarini
“The plight of children is particularly heartbreaking. It will take years to heal an entire generation of traumatized children,” he noted.
Mr. Lazzarini also asked that buildings such as hospitals or UNRWA premises be spared by the belligerents. These infrastructures “should never be used by any party for military purposes”.
He noted that 146 UNRWA agents had been killed since the start of the war.
This was triggered on October 7 by Hamas attacks which led to the death of some 1,140 people, mostly civilians, on Israeli soil, according to an AFP count based on Israeli figures.
Initiated in retaliation by Israel, the war in Gaza has since killed 23,843 people, the majority of them women and minors, according to the latest report from the Palestinian Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health.