By Anjali Sharma
UNITED NATIONS – UNRWA representative Scott Andersen on Wednesday in a press conference in New York stated that there are 100,000 metric tonnes of food waiting to be imported into Gaza by the WFP and UN Palestine refugee agency is enough food for everybody for the next three to four months.
Mr. Anderson said that the supplies exist, the environment to deliver does not.
“It’s just difficult to get aid to people at all,” he said.
He pointed out that prior to Israel’s Rafah offensive in May, there were 350 trucks getting in a day – a figure that’s shrunk to 30 trucks, on a good day.
UNRWA is coordinating closely with the Israel Defense Forces to try to create a more enabling environment for aid workers to get supplies in, but “we’re not quite there,” Mr. Anderson said.
In North Gaza, there are around 470,000 people still there amid an ongoing operation by the IDF. Of those, 65,000 have been displaced again.
He noted that in the declared humanitarian zone in the south, 1.4 million people are contained in dwindling space.
Mr. Anderson said that in the zone, “nowhere in Gaza is safe”, noting the air and missile strikes that have taken place there and killed many civilians.
He added that the hospitals are “somewhat in name only” due to the lack of equipment and supplies needed for proper secondary and tertiary care following the strikes.
Some 625,000 children in Gaza are out of primary school education which, combined with the effects of COVID-19, makes this the fourth year out of five that they have missed out on formal education.
“I’m very concerned about the lost generation,” he said.
He stressed the impact it will also have across generations as these children become.”
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