Gaza is strangled, world losing humanity: UN

October 16, 2023 13:01

Palestinian loses his family in Israel bombing. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which has the largest UN footprint in the Gaza Strip, has warned that it is on the verge of collapse and was even running out of body bags amidst the raging conflict between Israel and the Hamas militants.

"As I speak with you, Gaza is running out of water and electricity. In fact, Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity," United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on the situation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

"Gaza is now even running out of body bags. Entire families are being ripped apart," he said.

Addressing a press conference at UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem, Lazzarini said his colleagues in Gaza are no longer able to provide humanitarian assistance.

"The number of people seeking shelter in our schools and other UNRWA facilities in the South is absolutely overwhelming, and we do not have any more the capacity to deal with them, he said. In fact, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding under our eyes."

"The UNRWA operations is the largest United Nations footprint in the Gaza Strip, and we are on the verge of collapse. This is absolutely unprecedented," Lazzarini said. Israeli soldiers have amassed near Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive targeting Hamas militants, who launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

Israel has told 1.1 million Palestinians living in the north of Gaza to move south ahead of the possible ground operations. Detailing the plight and hardships in UNRWA schools and buildings, Lazzarini said sanitary conditions are just appalling.

"We have reports in our logistics base, for example, where hundreds of people are just sharing one toilet. Unless we bring supplies into Gaza, UNRWA and aid workers will not be able to continue humanitarian operations."

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday that for the fifth consecutive day, Gaza has been under a full electricity blackout, following Israel's halt of its electricity and fuel supply to the strip on October 7, which in turn triggered the shutdown of Gaza's sole power plant.

Essential service infrastructure is currently operational via backup generators. Fuel reserves at hospitals are not expected to last longer than 24 hours and the shutdown of backup generators would place the lives of thousands of patients at immediate risk, OCHA said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that hospitals in Gaza risk turning into morgues without electricity. -- PTI

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