Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 17th Jan. UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Tuesday insisted that only 1 in 4 aid missions allow into Gaza as UN chief António Guterres warned that “the long shadow of starvation” stalks the people of Gaza.
OCHA said the Israeli authorities have continued to block lifesaving aid from reaching northern Gaza since Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “In the first two weeks of January, only 24 per cent 7 out of 29 of planned missions to deliver food, medicine, water and other lifesaving supplies successfully reached their destinations north of Wadi Gaza.”
OCHA worker Olga Cherevko echoed those concerns and highlighted the dire situation in Gaza strip said that conditions were awful for displaced people in the south of Gaza, too.
“Some people have not eaten in days,” she said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter. “The children have no winter clothes. There’s no medical care. The extent of needs is enormous.”
OCHA in an update noted that most of the Israeli denials involved fuel and medicines allocated for reservoirs, water wells and health facilities north of Wadi Gaza.
“Lack of fuel for water, sanitation and hygiene increases risks of health and environmental hazards. Lack of medicine debilitated the functionality of the six partially functioning hospitals,” OCHA noted.
It highlighted “intense Israeli air, land and sea bombardments, ground operations and fighting with Palestinian armed groups continued across much of the Gaza Strip, alongside the firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups into Israel”.
WHO reported that Nasser Medical Complex in the southern city of Khan Younis “continues to receive high volume of trauma and burn cases”.
The hospital has 700 patients which is double its normal capacity while the ICU and burns unit “are severely understaffed, delaying lifesaving treatment”.
Mr. Guterres called for a ceasefire and appealed to all parties to restraint.
He also called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages taken during the 7 October terror attacks and the thorough investigation of all allegations of sexual violence against Palestinian militants.
“We can’t effectively deliver humanitarian aid while Gaza is under heavy, widespread and unrelenting bombardment,” Mr. Guterres said,.
He expressed deep concern about the “wholesale destruction” and levels of civilian casualties that were “unprecedented” during his time as Secretary-General.
“While there have been some steps to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, life-saving relief is not getting to people who have endured months of relentless assault at anywhere near the scale needed”, he added.
“The long shadow of starvation is stalking the people of Gaza along with disease, malnutrition and other health threats.”
UN human rights experts in a news release on Tuesday, reported that Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all those facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide.
UN Special Rapporteurs in a joint statement said “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”
They warned that all children under five in Gaza some 335,000 are at high risk of severe malnutrition, which means that “a whole generation is now in danger of suffering from stunting.”
“It is unprecedented to make an entire civilian population go hungry this completely and quickly. Israel is destroying Gaza’s food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people,” the human rights advocates stated.
The experts said that Israel had essentially blocked all access to farmland and the sea as a food source.
They acknowledged that 22 per cent of agricultural land in northern Gaza has been “razed by Israeli forces” and about 70 per cent of Gaza’s fishing fleet allegedly destroyed.
Over 60 percent of Palestinian homes in Gaza have been damaged, directly affects the ability to cook any food, and the experts accused Israel of causing domicide through the mass destruction of dwellings, making the territory uninhabitable.
