Humanitarian aid has virtually stopped in Khan Yunis, where a large proportion of civilians from northern Gaza were forced to move by Israel and are now the focus of hostilities, the UN said on Friday.
In its daily report on the conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it can now only distribute aid in Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip. along the border with Egypt.
“The central area of Gaza is virtually cut off from the south, due to Israeli movement restrictions on main roads,” the report points out, recalling that access to the north has been interrupted since the end of the ceasefire on December 1. .
For people who have been ordered to evacuate, there is no safe place to enter #Gaza.
Tens of thousands of people are squeezed into compressed spaces, their survival hanging by a thread.
People forced to move must be protected and their basic needs met.
– UN Humanitarian (@UNOCHA) December 8, 2023
The international humanitarian community has one clear message:
This must stop immediately.
The ceasefire we are all talking about must take effect immediately.
I spoke to NPR @Here and now about the latter #Gaza.https://t.co/c5KkVZYN28
– Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) December 7, 2023
On Thursday, the only humanitarian aid that managed to reach the town of Khan Yunis, also located in the south of the Gaza Strip, was World Health Organization (WHO) medical supplies for the European Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex. health facilities in the city.
Only 14 of the enclave’s 36 hospitals are still operating and of these, only two are in the north of the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israeli forces and where fighting was concentrated before the humanitarian pause agreed between November 24 and 30.
The report stated that one of the two hospitals still operating in the north, the Al-Awda Hospital Center in Jabalia (the far north), was surrounded by the Israeli army and suffered damage from bombing and Israeli sniper fire.
The WHO has documented 212 attacks on health facilities in Gaza so far and warned that the two main hospitals in the south of the enclave are operating at triple capacity.
The report highlights that in the past 24 hours hundreds of men, including some teenagers, were detained at a school in Beit Lahia (north of Gaza), where they had sought refuge and were taken to an unknown location, accused by Israel of possible ties with Hamas. .
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid continue to arrive in Gaza, according to the UN [69 na quinta-feira]but the ability to manage these shipments by the United Nations is very difficult because many vehicles were blocked in the central part of the lane.
Frequent telecommunications disruptions and the loss of contact with many UN agency staff also make it difficult to deliver aid, the report said.
The United Nations recalls that there are now 1.9 million internally displaced persons in Gaza, approximately 85% of the total population of the Palestinian territory, including 1.2 million refugees in schools and other facilities of the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Since December 3, tens of thousands of displaced people from Khan Younis and other areas have arrived in Rafah, a city in the far south, where overcrowded conditions are “extreme” according to the UN and there is not even room to camp. in the streets or open spaces.
“Thousands of people are waiting for hours in aid distribution centers, in desperate need of food, water, shelter, health care and protection,” the UN said.
According to surveys conducted by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), 36% of Gaza families suffer from severe hunger and 63% say they have gone entire days without food.
Source: DN
