One meal a day has become a dear demand for the residents of Gaza in light of the aggression and siege (European)
The United Nations confirmed on Tuesday that Israeli forces "systematically prevent access to residents of the Gaza Strip who need assistance, which complicates the task of delivering aid to a war zone that is not subject to any law."
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said, "It has become almost impossible to carry out operations to evacuate the sick and wounded and deliver aid in northern Gaza, and it is also becoming more difficult in the southern Gaza Strip."
Speaking to reporters today in Geneva, Laerke referred to an incident that occurred the day before yesterday, Sunday, when a convoy organized by the World Health Organization and the Palestinian Red Crescent to evacuate patients from the besieged Al-Amal Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis was prevented for 7 hours and a number of paramedics were detained.
He said, "Despite the prior coordination of all employees and vehicles with the Israeli side, the Israeli forces stopped the convoy led by the World Health Organization the moment it left the hospital and prevented it from moving for several hours."
Laerke added that the Israeli army “forced the patients and employees out of the ambulances, and stripped all the paramedics of their clothes.” He explained that the convoy was carrying 24 patients, and had to leave 31 other patients in Al-Amal Hospital, which stopped working after it was exposed to 40 attacks in January. “Last January alone, it killed at least 25 people.”
“Three paramedics belonging to the Palestine Red Crescent Society were later arrested, even though their personal data had been shared with Israeli forces beforehand,” Laerke said, adding that only one of them has been released so far.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it would suspend its operations in Gaza for 48 hours, because Israel failed to ensure the safety of its emergency medical teams.
The UN official stressed, "This is not an isolated incident. Aid convoys have come under fire and have been systematically prevented from reaching those in need."
He said, "Failing to provide adequate facilities to deliver aid throughout Gaza means that humanitarian workers are at risk of arrest, injury, or worse."
Laerke said that the United Nations "will continue to remind the Israeli forces that they are obligated to facilitate the safe, smooth and rapid passage of aid missions, when informed of this," noting that United Nations aid trucks, which move without armed guards, are often stopped as soon as they cross into Gaza by the Crowds of people who are in desperate need of food and other aid.
Lazzarini stressed that a ceasefire and lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip are necessary to allow the delivery of aid (French)
Miserable conditions
For his part, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on the X platform, “Aid was supposed to increase, not decrease, to meet the huge needs of two million Palestinians in miserable living conditions.”
He stressed that a ceasefire and lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip are necessary to allow the delivery of life-saving aid and the commercial movement of goods.
For its part, Human Rights Watch said that Israel did not comply with at least one measure in the legally binding order issued by the International Court of Justice in the genocide case brought by South Africa.
The organization added in a statement, "After a month, Israel continues to obstruct the provision of basic services and the entry and distribution of fuel and life-saving aid into Gaza. These are acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes, and include the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war."
It is noteworthy that in recent weeks, the Israeli occupation authorities prevented all aid convoys planned to be sent to the north.
The last aid allowed to enter was on January 23, according to the World Health Organization.
The volume of aid provided to the suffering population in the Gaza Strip decreased by half this February, compared to the previous month, according to United Nations data, which confirmed that the Gaza Strip received on average 98 trucks loaded with aid supplies each during this month.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving about 30,000 martyrs, most of them children and women.
Health care has largely collapsed, and many people are living in tents or on the streets.
The situation is further deteriorating hopelessly in the densely populated sector.
Source: Agencies