“No one is spared, whether humanitarian workers or the civilian population,” warns a humanitarian doctor

“How is it possible to ask a population to move even though we continue to bomb it?”, indignant Raphaël Pitti. “At this point, it’s a real genocide.”

Israeli bombings on the south of the Gaza Strip intensified on Tuesday, December 5, so much so that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launched the alert, comparing the situation in the Palestinian enclave to “hell on earth”.

“No one is spared, whether humanitarians or the civilian population”, confirms on franceinfo Raphaël Pitti, specialist in emergency medicine in war zones and head of training at the Union of Relief and Medical Care Organizations (UOSSM). An observation shared by the president of MSF, who indicated that “MSF staff asking to leave the Gaza Strip, this is quite new”.

franceinfo: In what conditions do humanitarian workers work in Gaza?

Rapahël Pitti: It’s impossible. We are in a terrible situation. No one is spared, whether humanitarian workers or the civilian population. It’s dramatic what happened and what is happening now. A population is asked to move to the South where they think they can be safe. She now finds herself totally trapped in the South. Nothing had been planned elsewhere in the South to be able to accommodate this population, both in terms of health and in terms of food and others. [Les autorités israéliennes] had obviously set up sectors, asking the population to move from one sector to another.

But how do we move from one sector to another when we don’t even have fuel, when we are on foot, when we are in schools, when we are housed in shelters, etc. ? How is it possible to ask a population to move when we don’t even give them time to move and we continue to bombard them? We need to see what the situation is… It’s terrible! What they are putting the Palestinian population through is terrible. Getting to this point is a real genocide.

What is the possible humanitarian response, while the UN is increasing its alerts?

First, they don’t let us return to reinforce our teams inside. It’s impossible to get in there. I myself am part of a group who have already been trying for a month to be able to return and we will not succeed. So from our side, the only thing that is very important is an immediate ceasefire. And it seems to me that at the level of our government, which has taken a humanitarian line in its political conduct, it is to recall our ambassador who is in Israel, to ask him to return to France or to recall the Israeli ambassador to report on the humanitarian situation faced by this population.

Calls for caution and restraint are no longer enough?

No way. Even the stock [de denrées, carburant et matériel humanitaires] which had been established by the UN, the Israelis are asking the UN to move it! How can they move the humanitarian stock in such a short time, when it should instead be distributed to this population? We are in something which is completely new, which has never been seen in all these last years.

“We are witnessing something that is unacceptable on a humanitarian level and these are war crimes for which Israel must be held accountable.”

Raphaël Pitti, humanitarian doctor, training manager at UOSSM

at franceinfo

What the Israeli authorities say is that it is up to Hamas to give in, to resume the release of hostages.

There is a problem, obviously, between Hamas and Israel. No one questions Israel’s right to defend itself. Nobody questions the fact that it is absolutely necessary to release hostages. It is a war crime to hold hostages. But in the middle, there are other people, there are thousands and thousands of people who are trapped in a war that does not concern them. They are innocent and lives must be spared. And that’s really what’s unacceptable: that we don’t take into account this Palestinian population who are totally innocent. There are already more than 15,000 dead, more than 7,000 children have been killed. All of this is unacceptable on a human level and it will obviously be necessary that at some point Hamas and Israel answer for all their war crimes and crimes against humanity.