Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 10th Jan. World health organization on Tuesday warned that for better access across the Gaza strip where relief is arriving “too little…too late” to help civilians caught up in the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel with no end in fighting.
Dr Rik Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory said “Even if there is no ceasefire, you would expect humanitarian corridors to operate in a much more sustained way than what’s happening now”.
He added “It’s too little. It’s too late and specifically in the north.”
WHO Emergency Medical Teams Coordinator Sean Casey stressed that the humanitarian assistance and especially food is desperately needed in northern areas
“The food situation in the north is absolutely horrific, there’s almost no food available,” he told journalists in Geneva via video from Rafah in southern Gaza. “Everybody we talk to begs for food and comes up and asks, ‘Where, where’s the food?’ People help us get our medical supplies through. But they are constantly telling us that we need to come back with food.”
Dr Peeperkorn explained that moving staff and supplies “safely and swiftly” had been compromised, “as deconfliction is required for any moves across Gaza, including the south -often leading to delays”.
He echoed that appeal and expressed concerns about intensifying hostilities in the southern Gaza.
Dr Peeperkorn explained in addition to getting more essential supplies into Gaza, what was also needed urgently was easier movement of humanitarian aid and workers within the enclave, “so that we can reach people wherever they are”.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 23,084 people have been killed in the enclave, 70 per cent were women and children. Some 59,000 people have also been injured, which is approximately 2.7 per cent of Gaza’s population.
He insisted that the UN and its partners remained “completely ready” to deliver assistance to the people of Gaza, who have endured a massive bombing campaign by the Israel military, in response to the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on 7 October that killed some 1,200 people and taken 240 hoostage.
Dr Peeperkorn said that hostilities and evacuation orders in Gaza’s central areas and further south in Khan Younis have affected access to hospitals for patients and ambulances.
He added that it has also become “incredibly complex” for WHO to reach “ailing” facilities with medical supplies and fuel.
Dr Peeperkorn noted 3 hospitals located near evacuation zones – European Gaza Hospital, Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Aqsa – “a lifeline” in the south for about two million people.
He said that “the constricted flow of supplies and access and evacuation of medical staff from many hospitals due to fears for safety are a recipe for disaster and will make more hospitals non-functional, as witnessed in the north. The international community must not allow this to happen,”.
He indicated that one indication of the “shrinking space” for lifesaving humanitarian work in Gaza is the fact that the WHO has not reached northern Gaza for two weeks.
According to WHO, 6 planned humanitarian missions have had to be cancelled since 26 December.
Dr Peeperkorn said “Our team is ready to deliver but we have not been able to receive the necessary permissions to proceed safely”.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that so-called “denials of coordinated movement requests” were causing critical hold-ups in aid delivery across Gaza.
He said that since 1 January, “humanitarian partners have requested 20 convoys, of which 15 were denied and two were unable to proceed because of delays or routes that were impassable.”
Dujarric added only three went to the hardest hit north of Gaza and that was with modifications to the plan that wound up impacting operations.
The major challenges to delivering humanitarian assistance, aid partners have provided healthcare and medical services to about half a million people since 7 October, he noted.
“But the needs are massive – and just over a third of more than 350 formal and informal shelters for internally displaced people in Gaza have access to any sort of medical points.”
He said in a regular press briefing in New York that “continued denial of fuel delivery to water and sanitation facilities is leaving tens of thousands of people without access to clean water and increasing the risk of sewage overflows, significantly heightening the risk of the spread of communicable diseases.”
