The head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Martin Griffiths, welcomed this Saturday the opening of the crossing between Egypt and Gaza, to allow the entry of humanitarian aid.
“This shipment follows days of intense and in-depth negotiations with all parties to ensure that aid operations in Gaza resume as quickly as possible and under the right conditions,” said Griffiths, who is in Cairo.
According to OCHA, UN-supervised first 20-truck caravan includes vital supplies organized by Egyptian Red Crescent (part of the international Red Cross societies) and by the United Nations itselfthat will deliver aid to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
“I am sure that this shipment It is the beginning of a sustained effort to bring essential suppliesincluding food, water, medicine and fuel, to the people of Gaza,” Griffiths said in a statement.
The British diplomat recalled that, after two weeks of hostilities, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, “already precarious, has reached catastrophic levels.”
“The people of Gaza have suffered for decades and the international community cannot continue to fail them.”said the UN humanitarian operations coordinator.
The Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7 with the launch of thousands of rockets and the incursion of armed militiamen, taking two hundred hostages.
In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, a movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is classified as terrorist by the European Union and the United States, bombing several of the group’s infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and imposing a total siege. to the territory with a cut in the supply of water, fuel and electricity.
The Rafah terminal, in the south of Gaza and the only passage to Egypt, will allow humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian territory.
The conflict has already caused thousands of deaths and injuries, between soldiers and civilians, in both territories.
Source: TSF
