Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 6th Jan. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths on Friday warned that “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable” and demanded Israeli forces and Palestinian militants Hamas to meet their obligations under international law to protect civilian lives.
Mr. Grifiths warned in a statement issued said “Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence while the world watches on”.
He added that “hope has never been more elusive” amidst deteriorating conditions.
Grifiths stressed “The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than two million people, even as its own staff are being killed and displaced, as communication blackouts continue, as roads are damaged and convoys are shot at, and as commercial supplies vital to survival are almost non-existent.”
He said that 3 months on from the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair, with a public health disaster unfolding before our eyes.
“Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner”, he said.
He added but rocket attacks from militants are still raining down on Israel, as over 120 people are still held hostage in Gaza.
Mr. Grifiths said the tensions in the West Bank at boiling point, and “the spectre of further regional spillover of the war” looming.
He reiterated that the war must end, “not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.”
He called the international community to use all influence possible to end the fighting, meet civilians’ essential needs, and secure the release of all hostages, in his closing statement.
