Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 8th Nov. UN humanitarians on Tuesday issued an appeal for access to Gaza strip after a month since Hamas terrorists killed 1,400 people in Israel, took over 240 hostage, and the Israeli in retaliation unleashed a war on Gaza to eliminate the Palestinian terrorist outfit on the face of the earth which resulted in thousands of civilians deaths.
WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said “Every day, you think it is the worst day and then the next day is worse,”, quoted a colleague in Gaza, which remains under almost complete blockade. “Access, access, access is necessary.”
According to figures from the Haman run Ministry of Health in Gaza stated that the level of death and suffering is “hard to fathom”
Mr. Lindmeier told journalists in Geneva that on average, 160 children are killed every day in Gaza and the total death toll has passed 10,000.
Israeli bombardments have intensified and military operations on the ground are continuing against fighters linked to the 7 October attacks.
Mr. Lindmeier said in Israel, people are “frightened, traumatized and anguished for their loved ones”, before reiterated calls on Hamas to release the hostages.
He stressed that many of those held captive need urgent medical attention.
Mr. Lindmeier insisted that what is needed now is “the political will to at least grant a humanitarian pause and access to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population as well as the hostages in Gaza”.
UN rights chief Volker Türk began a five-day visit to the region in Cairo on Tuesday to engage with Government officials, civil society, victims.
He stressed that “human rights violations are at the root of this escalation and human rights play a central role in finding a way out of this vortex of pain”.
Volker Türk is to visit Rafah on the Egypt-Gaza border before travelling to Jordan’s capital Amman.
UN humanitarian affairs coordination office spokesperson Jens Laerke confirmed to reporters in Geneva that the UN has been invited to the international conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza’s civilians hosted by the French Government in Paris on Thursday, and that it would be announced in due course who will take part on behalf of the Organisation.
The UN agency for Palestine refugees said that over two in three Gazans have been displaced in one month.
“This comes with constant fear and inhumane living conditions for almost 1.5 million people”, UNRWA said.
It stressed daily struggles to find bread and water as well as regular telecommunications blackouts cutting people off from loved ones and from the rest of the world.
Over 717,000 people are sheltering in 149 UNRWA installations across the enclave, including in the north, which has been cut off from the rest of the Strip by Israeli military operations.
Mr. Lindmeier said that “Nothing justifies the horror being endured by civilians in Gaza.”
He stressed their desperate need for water, fuel, food and safe access to health care to survive.
He reiterated the UN’s calls for “unhindered, safe and secure access” for some 500 trucks of aid a day, not only across the border but also “all the way through to the patients in the hospitals”, where surgeries including amputations were being performed without anaesthesia.
Mr. Lindmeier noted that hundreds of truckloads of aid are waiting for access at the Egypt-Gaza border and humanitarians on the ground in Gaza are on standby to facilitate the distribution of relief items.
He said that he was proud of the workers keeping the health system going in Gaza against all odds; “real heroes” who are “working under constant stress with no respite”.
Mr. Lindmeier said WHO lost 16 health workers on duty.
He stressed that any attacks on health care are forbidden by international humanitarian law.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric in New York said the Egyptian Government has agreed to the deployment of a UN technical humanitarian team to provide advice to the Egyptian Red Crescent Society on the delivery of aid to Gaza which will be based close to the Rafah crossing at Al Arish airport.
He said overcrowding in UN facilities in Gaza “remains a major concern”.
Dujarric said that at the Khan Younis Training Center, where 22,000 displaced men, women and children have sought shelter, the space per person is less than two square metres, and there is one toilet for 600 people”.
He noted that the colleagues at UNRWA said that worsening sanitary conditions, along with the lack of privacy and space, pose great risks to the health and safety of people sheltering there.
On the West Bank, 147 Palestinians have been killed, including 44 children, at the hands of Israeli forces. An additional eight Palestinians, including one child, have been killed by Israeli settlers, he noted.
Mr. Dujarric added “We also continue to see displacement in the West Bank with over 900 people displaced, since October 7th, amid settler violence or access restrictions”.
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