“The world is unable to see what is happening to these people, in situations where it is impossible for families to find shelter,” said Louise Wateridge, senior emergency officer at the United Nations Palestine Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Citing information from the Nusirat area of central Gaza, he said heavy winter rains fell overnight and continued until Friday morning.
Lewis Wateridge asserted that “the whole society here has now become a graveyard… More than two million people are trapped in this problem. They have no way of escape.”
“People are being deprived of basic needs and it seems like every road here leads (people) to death.”
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF reiterated the warning, highlighting the widespread and alarming levels of malnutrition in the Gaza Strip.
More than 96 percent of women and children in Gaza “are not able to meet their basic nutritional needs,” UNICEF communications specialist Rosalia Bollen said.
Rosalia Bolen, speaking from Amman, said the northern part of Gaza had been under an almost total Israeli siege for 75 days.
Because of this, humanitarian aid has not been able to reach the youth in need “for more than 10 weeks”.
Where should go, what should be done?
She said, “The suffering is not only physical, it is also mental… Children are cold, they are wet, they are barefoot; I see many children who still wear summer clothes and do not cook.” After running out of gas. , I see many children looking for plastic in garbage piles that they can burn (for warmth).”
UNRWA’s Louise Wateridge stressed the dire need for aid to reach the people of Gaza, who have been repeatedly uprooted by Israeli bombardment and have few resources to protect themselves from the weather.
“It is impossible for families to find shelter in these conditions. Most people are living in simple cloth tents, they have no water-proof structures and 69 percent of the buildings here have been damaged or destroyed,” insisted Louise Wateridge. People have no recourse to escape from this situation.”
Multiple and continuous aid embargoes imposed by Israeli authorities mean that humanitarian aid workers are forced to prioritize food delivery over shelter, leaving Gazans desperate and at risk of food stampedes.
“Winter certainty is the only thing that the United Nations has planned for and yet we have not been able to provide enough shelter to people because we have to prioritize food,” said Louise Wateridge. Crushed to death waiting for a piece of bread.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Assistance (OCHA) said on Thursday that Israeli authorities had “rejected another UN request for food and water supplies to the Israeli-besieged areas of northern Gaza Governorate. As a result, Palestinians in parts of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and “Jabalia are deprived of life-saving aid. .”