Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 2nd May. UN humanitarians on Wednesday underscored the ongoing devastating impact of the war in Gaza and the need to ensure reliable aid supply lines to people in desperate need after growing international calls for restraint from Israel in Gaza and reports on Wednesday of deadly strikes overnight.
Matthew Hollingworth, WFP Palestine Country Director said “One-third of all the families who live here have children under five, so many babies, so many kids,” .
“What they need is school, though what they need is more clean water, what they need is more stability. They need a normal life,” he posted a video post on X.
UNRWA noted that there have been more than 360 attacks on its facilities since the start of the war.
Thousands of victims, vital infrastructure has been impacted, including the agency’s water well in Khan Younis.
UN Mine Action Service said that getting the precious water source up and running again will require clearing tonnes of debris which has found to contain “a lot of dangerous materials and shrapnel.”
Communications officer Louise Wateridge said “Which means that instead of coming in with bulldozer and clearing it, it all needs to be removed piece by piece, safely.”
The Al Qastal UNRWA school in the central Gaza Strip is home to around 2,400 families who have been displaced by nearly seven months of war in Gaza.
“People come from all over Gaza and the Gaza City itself, from Khan Younis and other neighborhoods where people have been impacted because of the war,” Mr. Hollingworth strated.
He made comments after unconfirmed reports that two children died in an overnight Israeli strike on a house in Rafah, with more killed when an apartment block was hit in Gaza City.
UN chief Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday of deep concerns persist about a possible Israeli invasion of Rafah – which he said “would be an unbearable escalation”
WFP official noted that UN aid agencies along with international and local relief partners have worked together successfully to provide lifesaving assistance further north.
Mr. Hollingworth said in the case of Al Qastal school recipients assistance includes food and special nutritional supplements for babies and infants to ensure healthy growth
UN aid coordination office OCHA reported that Israeli authorities blocked or excessively delayed the passage of three quarters of all UN-coordinated aid missions to areas requiring coordination across Gaza on Monday.
“One of those missions went to northern Gaza following full coordination with the Israeli authorities, but the team was forced to wait for a combined time of more than nine hours before departing, on the way north, and on the way back to Rafah.”
“Such delays put humanitarian missions in jeopardy and humanitarian workers in harm’s way, as fighting between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces often takes place near checkpoints.”
OCHA reported that when upon returning, the same mission collected the body of a boy who had apparently been killed near the checkpoint.
UN aid coordination office, OCHA published new data from the occupied West Bank, showed that demolition of Palestinian property and displacement continue unabated.
Latest data from OCHA indicated that up to 22 April, over 380 structures have been demolished in West Bank governorates, uprooting 650 people.
If the destruction continues at this rate, by the end of the year, a record 1,500 properties face being razed, the highest number since OCHA began compiling data in 2009.
Jerusalem governorate saw the highest level of damage, with 80 buildings demolished and 115 people displaced.
Andrea De Domenico, Head of Office for OCHA in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said that since
7 October, Israeli forces have destroyed the homes of 1,765 Palestinians across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
This is more than the number of displaced people in any previous full year.
“Historically, displacement was mostly the result of demolitions due to lack of permits, which are rarely granted to Palestinians. More recently, it is the result of operations carried out by Israeli forces in areas where permits aren’t required, such as the refugee camps of Nur Shams, Tulkarm, and Jenin,” he said.
“These operations have involved shoulder-fired projectiles, airstrikes, exchanges of fire, fatalities, and widespread destruction, including homes and essential infrastructure like roads, water, and electricity networks. This is not something we have seen before at this scale.”
He added that the implications are vast, with families losing access to their livelihoods. Some 43% of those displaced are children.
“We are working hard to address these needs as a matter of priority, but humanitarian support is not the solution. Ultimately, such practices cannot continue”, he said.
Gaza health authorities indicated that 34,568 Palestinians have been killed and 77,765 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October.
Some 1,250 people were killed in Hamas-led terror attacks on southern Israel that sparked the war, with more than 250 taken hostage. Dozens are still believed to be held captive in Gaza.
According to news media reports the NY police officers reportedly cleared a pro-Palestinian protest involved hundreds of people at Columbia University in New York late Tuesday.
Police removed demonstrators who had barricaded themselves inside a building on campus, while there were reports of major clashes between rival demonstrators overnight on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles at the authorities’ behest.
UN rights chief Volker Türk cautioned against any “heavy-handed steps” by some universities in the United States when dealing with Gaza war protests.
The Columbia university president had announced that dialogue with protesters had failed and the institution would not bow to demands to divest itself from Israel.
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