United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said this at a high-level meeting of ministers in New York on Thursday.
It should be noted that more than 41,000 people have been killed and more than 90,000 injured in Israel’s fierce bombing of Gaza for almost a year. Most of them are women and children.
“An estimated 2 million Palestinians are currently confined to a small space the size of Shanghai International Airport, barely alive, not able to live – where dirty sewage flows, piles of garbage and mountains of garbage pile up,” the UN chief said.
“There is only one certainty ahead of them and that is that tomorrow will be worse and worse.”
Abandonment of UNRWA
UNRWA is the only ray of hope left in Gaza, yet 222 of its staff and many of their families have been killed. Some of them died while working in shelters and were bombed. This is the largest number of deaths of its employees in the history of the United Nations.
Antonio Guterres said UNRWA staff were attacked simply for doing their jobs and humanitarian aid operations in Gaza were halted.
“Protection and de-escalation have failed to support the delivery of humanitarian aid,” he said. Efforts to oust UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem continue and UNRWA has not been spared on the political front either.”
“It involves a systematic disinformation campaign that discredits the longstanding work of this organization.”
He also drew attention to a bill in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, which proposes to declare UNRWA as a terrorist organization and if the bill becomes law, the organization will not be able to provide its services in Israeli territory.