The humanitarian situation in Gaza is now “catastrophic”, five UN agencies warned on Saturday, ensuring that hospitals are “overwhelmed” with wounded and that children are “dying at an alarming rate”.
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In a statement, the World Health Organization, the World Food Program, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Population Fund, recall that the The humanitarian situation in Gaza was already “desperate” before the conflict triggered by the October 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel.
“Today it is catastrophic,” they continue, calling on the international community to “do more” to help the inhabitants of Gaza.
“Time is running out before mortality rates skyrocket due to the outbreak of disease and lack of health care capacity,” they warn.
Subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007, the Gaza Strip, a poor and cramped territory of 362 square kilometers, has been placed under “complete siege” since October 9. by Israel, which cut off water, electricity and food supplies there.
A first humanitarian aid convoy of 20 trucks according to the UN, coming from Egypt, entered on Saturday via the Rafah crossing, the only entry point into the Gaza Strip which is not in the hands of Israel . This figure is totally insufficient for the UN, which wants 100 trucks per day for the 2.4 million Gazans deprived of everything.
“The Gazans need much more, a massive delivery of aid is necessary” declared the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, at the “Peace Summit” in Cairo.
According to the five UN agencies, “children are dying at an alarming rate, deprived of their rights to protection, food, water and health care.”
“Hospitals are overwhelmed with injured people. Civilians are finding it increasingly difficult to access essential foodstuffs,” they continue.
More than 1,400 people have been killed on Israeli territory by Hamas men since October 7, the majority of civilians mowed down by bullets, burned alive or dead of mutilation on the first day of the attack by fighters of the Palestinian Islamist movement carried out in from Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
In the Gaza Strip, more than 4,300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in incessant bombings carried out in retaliation by the Israeli army, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Hamas also holds some 200 hostages, according to the Israeli army.