Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 12th Dec. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths on Monday reiterated deep concerns for the people of Gaza after reports of intense fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza City and Jabalia in the north of the Strip, and in Khan Younis in the south as the le Israeli bombardment has continued in Gaza.
Mr. Griffiths said that the situation was “getting worse”, while efforts to secure “moments of peace” remained of the “greatest importance”.
According to the latest update on the emergency from UN relief coordination office, thousands of people “in desperate need of food, water, shelter, health and protection” who recently fled to Rafah in the south, had waited for hours around aid distribution centres.
OCHA’s latest update on the violence indicated that the lack of adequate sanitation had led to “widespread” open-air defecation, increasing fears of disease spread.
According to the Gazan health authorities, about 18,000 people have now been killed in Gaza since the fighting began; about 70 per cent are said to be women and children; and more than 49,000 people are reportedly injured.
Mr. Griffiths thanked Qatar for its “creative diplomacy” as part of efforts to “bring moments of peace” to the embattled enclave.
He stressed that “the intensification of the military operation that we have been hearing about in the south of Gaza and the threats to neighboring countries” make those efforts “all the more important”.
According to a statement from the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lynn Hastings noted that there is no end to the hostilities triggered by Hamas’ deadly terror attacks in Israel, where “the killings, sexual violence and kidnappings by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on 7 October traumatized an entire nation”.
Ms. Hastings noted that Israel’s retaliation for the attacks has led to a deep humanitarian crisis in Gaza where some 1.9 million people, the vast majority of the population, have been displaced, aid operations are severely impeded by the fighting and only a bare minimum of fuel and relief items have been coming in.
OCHA reiterated that the UN’s ability to receive incoming aid had been “significantly impaired over the past few days”, due to a shortage of trucks within Gaza, telecommunications blackouts and aid workers being prevented by the fighting from getting to the Rafah crossing through which a trickle of relief items is entering from Egypt.
It said 150,000 litres of fuel per day on average entered from Egypt. This is higher than the daily average of 67,000 litres but still represented “the bare minimum needed to prevent the collapse of critical services” including hospitals and ambulances, water and sanitation as well as shelters for the displaced.
OCHA noted some 45 tonnes of cooking gas from Egypt arrived on Sunday, “the first such delivery since the resumption of hostilities” after a seven-day ceasefire ended on 1 December.
Ms. Hastings said on Sunday that “Israel has the obligation as the occupying power to ensure that sufficient hygiene and public health standards as well as the provision of food and medical care are available to the population under occupation.”
According to OCHA, multiple health facilities and personnel were attacked across the Gaza over the weekend, notably in Jabalia in the north, where two medical staff were reportedly killed while on duty inside the besieged Al Awda Hospital during clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.
WHO-led UN and Palestine Red Crescent Society convoy delivered medical supplies to Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City and evacuated 19 critically injured patients.
OCHA said that the convoy was “delayed by Israeli forces at a checkpoint in Wadi Gaza” for “extensive screenings” and that one of the evacuated patients died during the trip southwards while a paramedic was detained for four hours, “during which he was interrogated and reportedly beaten and intimidated”.
It said that humanitarian access to the north of the Strip where hundreds of thousands of civilians are still sheltering remains “severely constrained”.
OCHA said that in Khan Younis an ambulance near the European Hospital came under fire, reportedly by Israeli forces on Saturday and two paramedics were injured.
According to OCHA, on Sunday the area around the hospital was bombarded for the third consecutive day, depriving dozens of injured people from access to treatment.
OCHA quoted Gaza’s health authorities, said 286 health workers have been killed and 57 ambulances have been hit and damaged.
It highlighted that over the weekend in the north of the enclave Israeli forces “reportedly detained hundreds of men and boys staying in public spaces, schools serving as shelters for internally displaced persons as well as private homes”.
OCHA added “Reportedly, detainees were stripped to their underwear, handcuffed, and ordered to sit on their knees in open areas, subjected to beatings, harassment, harsh weather and denial of basic necessities”, as images of them were circulated on social media.
OCHA reiterated that according to the Israeli military, those suspected of links to Hamas were transferred to Israel for interrogation, while others were released.
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