In Gaza, 8 of the 22 health centers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees are operational. They are still functioning “but we don’t know for how long,” explained the UNRWA Deputy Commissioner General on Thursday.
Published
Reading time :
1 minute
:quality(50)/2023/10/26/gaza-humanitaire-653a7913513dd887001934.jpg)
“It’s hell on Earth”, launches Thursday October 26 on franceinfo Natalie Boucly, Deputy Commissioner General of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East. She explains that among the 22 UNRWA health centers in Gaza, “eight are still operational”. “The situation there is absolutely catastrophic. I don’t know where to start, she is alarmed, we have 600,000 displaced people who have found refuge in our premises in the Gaza Strip. These are premises which were absolutely not built to accommodate so many people”.
Natalie Boucly describes on site a “deplorable health situation, absolutely catastrophic” and now fears that diseases will develop: “We already have cases of hepatitis”, she says. Concerning the eight UNRWA health centers, they are still functioning “but we don’t know for how long”. The reason: the lack of fuel which supplies these centers in particular. “It’s a matter of days before these centers close too, believes the commissioner, two or three days”according to her. “We still have a little fuel left and now we are rationing it. Which center will be supplied? Decisions like that are cruel and have a life or death impact on people”.
For UNRWA, it is necessary “a humanitarian ceasefire and above all the entry into Gaza of a flow of food, medicine and fuel for humanitarian purposes and on a continuous basis”. Natalie Boucly recalls that before the conflict, “There were 500 trucks per day entering the Gaza Strip, around fifty of them with fuel. Today, she laments, there are around twenty trucks entering, it’s a drop in the ocean of needs”.