Louise Waterridge of the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) said: “The world is not seeing what is happening to these people. It is impossible for families to be evacuated in these conditions.” .
“The whole society here is now a graveyard…More than 2 million people are trapped,” said a senior UNRWA emergency officer, speaking from Nuseirat in central Gaza after heavy winter rains fell overnight into Friday morning. “There is,” he claimed. they can’t escape. And people continue to be deprived of basic needs, where it feels like every path leads to death. ”
Echoing this warning, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) highlighted widespread and dangerous levels of malnutrition in the enclave, where more than 96 percent of women and children in the Gaza Strip are “unable to meet their basic nutritional needs.” Rosalia Bollen of the Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said: ) Communication Specialist.
Speaking from Amman, Ms. Boren noted that the northernmost tip of Gaza has been under near-total siege for 75 days. This has left little humanitarian aid reaching young people in need on the ground for “more than 10 weeks,” she said.
“The suffering is not just physical, it is also psychological…Children are cold, wet and barefoot. Many are still wearing summer clothes and cooking gas has run out. Nowadays, I see many children rummaging through garbage piles looking for combustible plastic.
With more heavy rain expected on Friday evening, UNRWA’s Ms. Waterridge is on a mission to assist Gazans who have been repeatedly uprooted by Israeli shelling and have little protection from the elements. He emphasized the critical need to deliver aid to enclaves.
“It is impossible for families to evacuate in these conditions,” Waterridge argued. “Most people live under the covers, there’s not even a waterproof structure, and 69 percent of the buildings here are damaged or destroyed. There’s simply no place for people to protect themselves from these elements.”
Multiple ongoing aid obstacles imposed by Israeli authorities have forced humanitarian workers to prioritize food over shelter, leaving Gaza residents in desperate situations and at risk from a food stampede. There is.
“The only thing the United Nations could plan for was the certainty of winter,” Waterridge argued. “Yet it is still not easy to get enough shelter supplies to people because food has had to be prioritized. Some women have been crushed to death waiting for a piece of bread.”
On Thursday, the U.N. aid coordination office OCHA reported that Israeli authorities “rejected renewed U.N. requests to deliver food and water to besieged areas in northern Gaza governorate.” As a result, some Palestinians in Beit Hanoun, Beit Rahiya, and Jabalya remain cut off from the support they need to survive. ”
