The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, urged the United Nations and Arab and Muslim countries on Monday to intensify pressure to open a humanitarian corridor in that territory.
“We urge Arab and Islamic countries and the United Nations to intensify efforts to open a permanent humanitarian corridor” in the Palestinian enclave, which could “derail the Israeli occupation’s plan to starve Gazans” Hamas appealed in an official statement.
Shortly after the outbreak of the armed conflict, on October 7, following a Hamas attack that killed 1,400 people in Israel, the Israeli Government imposed a siege, preventing access to food, drinking water, medicine and electricity to the Strip. Gaza, causing a serious humanitarian crisis for the civilian population living in the enclave.
“The entry of very limited amounts of aid into the Gaza Strip does not meet the growing needs of our people, who are the subject of barbaric aggression for the 17th consecutive day,” Hamas added, referring to the three convoys of trucks with supplies. who from Saturday until today entered the enclave from Egypt.
These supplies – a total of about 60 trucks as of Monday – are not enough to feed Gaza’s 2.3 million residents nor do they improve the situation in hospitals, most of which have collapsed due to lack of electricity and of basic health resources.
“The current siege has paralyzed humanitarian conditions and caused serious shortages of food and medicine, not to mention hospitals that have run out of fuel,” Hamas stressed.
Therefore, the group called for the opening of an “urgent humanitarian corridor” for civilians in the Gaza Strip, in order to guarantee their safety, as well as the entry of all non-existent essential goods.
All of this, the statement adds, “to avoid a major humanitarian catastrophe” and the continuation of what Hamas calls “genocide and crimes against humanity”, which, “if they continue, will be an absolute shame.”
Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed more than five thousand Palestinians, 40% of whom are children and 22% women or the elderly, and have injured more than 15,200 people, according to health authorities in the enclave.
Source: TSF
