UN agencies sounded the alarm on Tuesday over the humanitarian situation in the war-devastated Gaza Strip, saying that ten children are losing a leg or two every day and that half a million Palestinians are suffering from hunger at a “catastrophic” level.
At 9e months of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas, the Israeli army continues to bombard Gaza by air and land and to confront Palestinian fighters there, maintaining the siege of some 2.4 million inhabitants in the small territory.
“Basically, every day we have 10 children who lose one or two legs on average. Ten per day, that means around 2,000 children after more than 260 days of this brutal war,” said the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini in Geneva.
He mentioned a report from the NGO Save the Children according to which since the start of the war “up to 21,000 children are missing” in Gaza, either because they are buried under rubble, prisoners, buried in anonymous graves or that they have lost contact with their loved ones.
Survival
A report from the Integrated Food Security Classification Framework (IPC), on which UN agencies are based, stressed that the entire Gaza Strip remains threatened by a “high and sustained risk” of famine.
He said 495,000 people were still suffering from “catastrophic” hunger in Gaza, but noted a slight improvement in the humanitarian situation in the north of the territory.
For Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian coordinator for the UN in Gaza, the living conditions in Gaza “are about survival, and then again”. “There is no longer a square centimeter where we feel safe. »
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the “intense” phase of the fighting was coming to an end, particularly in Rafah where the army launched a ground offensive on May 7, but that the war against Hamas would continue.
He repeated that the “objective” was “to recover the hostages” held in Gaza and to “uproot the Hamas regime”, in place since 2007 and considered terrorist by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
Disastrous consequences
On Tuesday, the army announced that it had struck two sites in Gaza used by Hamas, including one in Shati, targeting fighters who according to it were operating “in schools” and were “involved in the detention of hostages”.
According to an AFP correspondent, a strike left five dead, including two children, near al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City.
In the south, airstrikes and artillery fire targeted areas of Rafah, according to witnesses.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive has so far left 37,658 dead, mostly civilians, including 32 in the past 24 hours, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
Humanitarian aid in danger
Senior United Nations officials have warned Israel they will suspend aid operations in the Gaza Strip unless urgent steps are taken to better protect aid workers, two U.N. officials said.
A U.N. letter sent this month to senior Israeli officials said Israel must provide U.N. workers with direct communication with Israeli forces on the ground in the Gaza Strip, among other measures, the officials said.
They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations with Israeli officials. U.N. officials said no final decision had been made on suspending operations in the Gaza Strip and that talks with the Israelis were ongoing.
Israeli military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel has acknowledged some military strikes against aid workers, including an attack in April that killed seven workers at the “World Central Kitchen” organization, including a Quebecer, and has denied allegations of other strikes.
The United Nations World Food Program has already suspended the delivery of aid from a US-built pier on the shores of the Gaza Strip for security reasons.
The U.N. and other humanitarian officials have complained for months that they have no way to communicate quickly and directly with Israeli forces on the ground, unlike usual procedures – known as “coordination” – in areas of conflict on a global scale to protect aid workers from attacks by fighting forces.
The UN and aid workers also complain about growing lawlessness in the Gaza Strip and have urged Israel to do more to improve the overall security of their operations.
“Missiles hit our premises, even though they are not parties to the conflict,” Steve Taravella, a spokesman for the World Food Program (WFP), one of the main organizations working on the delivery of food, said on Tuesday. humanitarian aid in the Palestinian territory. Mr. Taravella was not among those who confirmed the UN threat to suspend its operations throughout the territory.
“WFP warehouses have been caught in the crossfire over the past two weeks. »