The majority of the population fled the north of the enclave, where the fighting was initially concentrated. But since the Israeli offensive has also intensified in the South, Gazans have “nowhere to go”.
“Forty-five people were killed during an Israeli strike. Most had fled Gaza City for Deir al-Balah [plus au sud]. They thought they were safe there.” In three published sentences on the social networkWednesday December 6, Motaz Azaiza summarizes the daily life of the Gazan population. “No one is safe”, denounces the photojournalist, who collaborates in particular with the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). A week after the end of the humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army intensified its operations in the south of the enclave. However, she had ordered civilians to go there a few weeks earlier to take shelter from the fighting with Hamas.
Since the start of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, “there has never been a safe place”recalls Juliette Touma, UNRWA communications director. “There were already bombings in Rafah and Khan Younes, but less than in the North.” Now, the more than 1.8 million internally displaced people — out of a total of 2.2 million inhabitants — no longer know where to go. Khan Yunis, where many of them had sought refuge, became the epicenter of fierce fighting. “We had to evacuate one of our reception centers on Wednesdayreports Juliette Touma. The horrors we saw in the north at the start of the war are being repeated today in the south.”
“The entire population is pushed into a tiny area”
“Some displaced people want to move again, but there are bombings everywhere”confirms Frédéric Joli, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Gazan journalists, the only ones covering the war since foreign reporters are not allowed to enter the enclave, are themselves victims of this situation. According to the latest RSF count, Thursday December 7, at least 58 of them were killed in Gaza in two months. “I fled the North with my family. (…) I am currently alone in Khan Younes, while my relatives are in the center” of the territory, says Adnan el-Bursh, BBC correspondent who says he “torn by indecision”.
“Should I go to Rafah, to the south, to continue working, hoping that my family is okay? Or should I try to find them, stop covering [la guerre] and, if it comes to the worst, at least die with my loved ones?”
Adnan el-Bursh, BBC journalist
Most of the displaced are now concentrated in Rafah, on the border with Egypt. “Almost the entire population is pushed into a tiny area that represents barely more than a quarter of the territory”Juliette Touma is alarmed. “The UN has described the situation in Gaza as ‘hell’. And this is what my 27 colleagues there confirm”agrees Gloria Donate, director of the development and quality program in the occupied Palestinian territories, for the NGO Save the Children. “There is literally no more room to accommodate these displaced people. Some are taking refuge on the beach, setting up tents outside UNRWA reception centers or sleeping in the street,” she explains.
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Already overcrowded before the truce, the UNRWA centers “can no longer accommodate anyone”according to Juliette Touma. “We welcome 1.2 million people, or half of the Gazan population”, she notes. Places planned to take care of a thousand displaced people “There are more than 30,000. And people continue to arrive in droves.” “The new arrivals sleep on the concrete because we no longer have mattresses, or are welcomed by other families who have already settled”, explains Juliette Touma. Humanitarians are also affected: 75% of UNRWA employees are displaced, as are all 27 Save The Children members present in Gaza.
Without sufficient hygiene or sanitary products, living conditions are deplorable. “Some have not changed their clothes for two months, because they left in a hurry”, continues the communications manager of the UN agency. Combined with a lack of hygiene and a lack of drinking water, which pushes the population to drink dirty water, promiscuity creates a high risk of epidemics. On December 5, the WHO counted 120 000 cases of acute respiratory infections in the Gaza Strip and 86 000 cases of diarrhea, half of which occur in children under 5 years old, who are particularly vulnerable to this type of illness, which can be fatal.
Hospitals saturated with wounded and corpses
The Gazan health system is on the verge of collapse. Only 18 of 36 hospitals are still operational, according to the WHO. Three only provide basic care, while the others only offer partial services. “The surgical team at the European hospital in Khan Younes now only performs amputations, summarizes Frédéric Joli, of the ICRC. Not to treat people injured by bombings. They amputate patients because they have not received the necessary care for small wounds, and they are at risk of septicemia or gangrene.
“The influx of wounded is such that hospitals are forced to triage: they must choose who lives and who dies, between those for whom we know we have enough to treat them and those who are in too serious a condition to be treated. survive.”
Frédéric Joli, ICRC spokespersonat franceinfo
Ambulances sometimes bring more remains than living people. The al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah thus saw the arrival “more dead than injured” Thursday, according to Doctors Without Borders. “The morgues are saturated. In the midst of the bombings, burials are very complicated to organizenotes Frédéric Joli. Hospitals therefore find themselves unable to manage the remains, and live in a constant smell of death.”
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Faced with the advance of Israeli forces, health establishments have also been transformed into reception centers for the displaced. Juliette Touma describes “courtyards and corridors crowded with people seeking safety, although we know that hospitals can also be targeted by the IDF”. “Sold out”caregivers “lack of equipment and medicine”adds Frédéric Joli. “The truce had made it possible to slightly improve supplies in the South, but the situation is once again catastrophic.”
“We are being suffocated”
Fuel, drinking water, food, medical treatment… The Gaza Strip lacks everything. “The truce had brought a little respite and calm to a distressed population, but had also made it possible to finally bring in help humanitarian”, recalls Juliette Touma. After six weeks of total siege, these deliveries remained well below those which took place every day before the war. “It was a drop in the ocean: we cannot feed 2.2 million inhabitants with 200 trucks per day”, explains Gloria Donate, from the NGO Save The Children. Since the resumption of fighting, the number of heavy goods vehicles passing the Rafah border post daily “has decreased significantly”deplores UNRWA.
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Distributing the little humanitarian aid that arrives also poses “a real logistical challenge”according to Frédéric Joli. “Everything is urgent for the survival of the population: water, food, fuel… It is difficult to prioritize what we must deliver.” And even more difficult for NGOs and UN agencies to transport these essential goods anywhere. “It is not under bombs that we organize food distributions. It is impossible to move the trucks under the strikes and with many unexploded war remnants.”annoys the ICRC spokesperson, who emphasizes that “even humanitarian workers risk their lives.” Since the start of the conflict, more than 130 UNRWA members have been killed in Israeli bombings.
“Apart from witnessing the deaths of thousands of people, the scenarios at this stage [pour les humanitaires] are more than pessimistic. And time is against all those who try to alleviate the suffering of the people of Gaza.”
Frédéric Joli, ICRC spokespersonat franceinfo
For “a bloodless population”in a territory where food insecurity was already high due to years of blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt, “every hour has deleterious consequences”, he insists. As the UN Secretary General did a few days earlier, Gloria Donate warns against “the collapse of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip”. “UNRWA manages the largest humanitarian operation in the territory, but we are being suffocated”worries Juliette Touma.
“One of my colleagues, himself displaced, called me yesterday. The strikes are so intense in Khan Younès that he burst into tears. He said to me: ‘Get me out of there, I don’t know anymore what to say to my children.'”
Juliette Touma, UNRWA communications directorat franceinfo
After “two months of nightmare”Gazans experience “a mixture of exhaustion, helplessness and above all fear”believes Juliette Touma. “The general condition of the population, which lives in permanent stress, is increasingly bad”, agrees Frédéric Joli. While the Hamas Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip claims that Israeli bombings have already caused nearly 17 500 dead (a toll impossible to verify by independent sources), all the organizations interviewed by franceinfo call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, as well as respect for international law. Without this, “it is difficult to see how the population will be able to survive”warns the ICRC spokesperson.