With the supply of humanitarian support grinding to a halt, a U.N. official has warned that Gaza confronted “an even more hellish scenario” within the coming days.
“The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” mentioned Lynn Hastings, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.
Since the tip of a seven-day truce, Israeli forces have pushed into southern Gaza, “forcing tens of thousands … into increasingly compressed spaces, desperate to find food, water, shelter and safety,” Hastings mentioned.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go.”
“If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond,” Hastings mentioned in an announcement.
Hastings, a Canadian, rejected the concept of “safe zones” urged upon Israel by the U.S. authorities the place persons are nonetheless unable to maneuver about freely.
“These zones cannot be safe nor humanitarian when unilaterally declared,” she mentioned.
“What we see today,” Hastings added, “are shelters with no capacity, a health system on its knees, a lack of clean drinking water, no proper sanitation and poor nutrition for people already mentally and physically exhausted: a textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster.”
Further complicating support deliveries, two main roads in Gaza have been declared off-limits to U.N. groups and vehicles, Hastings mentioned.
Hastings has her base in Jerusalem however Israel final week knowledgeable the U.N. that it might not renew her visa, accusing her of not being “impartial.”
The spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, within the meantime, known as once more for “a sustained humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza and the unconditional and immediate release of all remaining hostages.”
The Israeli military has tightened its grip on southern Gaza, the place dozens of tanks entered Monday as a part of its offensive towards the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, in response to its Oct. 7 incursion.
Source: www.dailysabah.com