“It’s hell again in the Gaza Strip,” says the vice-president of Médecins du monde

“It’s hell again in the Gaza Strip”, says Saturday December 2 Jean-François Corty, vice-president of Médecins du monde on franceinfo. Fighting, and in particular bombings, has resumed in the Palestinian enclave for the second consecutive day since the expiration of the truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. “The teams that were beginning to reorganize are once again in panic and with no way out”explains Jean-François Corty about the humanitarians on site.

During the truce, Jean-François Corty explains that Médecins du monde “was in the process of bringing in a cargo of six tons of medicines to cover the needs of 20,000 people over three months and this cargo we do not know where it is today”. He explains that there is “a few hundred trucks which have returned, probably 200 to 300 during this truce. We would need 500 to 600 per day” adding that in six days, “most of the aid that came in could not reach all the beneficiaries”.

An “absolutely necessary” ceasefire

With these new bombings, he fears “a predicted carnage and a dynamic of famine which is reactivating” and calls for a ceasefire “absolutely necessary”. Despite everything, he concedes, “the hypothesis of a ceasefire is indeed far away. But we will continue, humanitarian associations, many States in the world are demanding this ultimate necessity”.

Jean-François Corty also reacted to the announcement from Doctors Without Borders which pointed out, on Friday, the responsibility of the Israeli army in shootings which allegedly left two dead on November 18 in Gaza, in an NGO convoy. He explains that Doctors of the World also “lost a doctor more than 15 days ago who died under bombs with his entire family”. In total, “it’s more than 100 people who died” belonging to the United Nations.