Refugee camp in Khan Yunis. Gaza: Humanitarian organizations need security guarantees to continue working Peace and Security
Vital humanitarian operations in Gaza must be protected from attack. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths said this on Thursday amid reports of new incidents in the sector.
Media reported that six Palestinians were killed and 83 others were injured in Gaza City as they waited for aid trucks to arrive.
Griffiths earlier condemned the strikes on a warehouse and food distribution center in Rafah on Wednesday, which killed at least one staff member of the UN Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) and wounded more than 20.
The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator called the attack “terrible news for our colleagues in Gaza, who have already suffered so much loss, and for the families they were trying to help.”
“How can we continue relief operations if our personnel and cargo are constantly under threat? They must be protected. This war must end,” he said.
Attack on UNRWA warehouse
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini reported that the warehouse targeted by Israel was located in eastern Rafah and remained “one of the few” functioning aid distribution points.
Lazzarini stressed that the parties to the conflict knew the coordinates of this object.
According to him, food supplies are depleted: hunger in the sector is widespread, and in some areas it has reached a massive scale.
Catastrophic plans
The UN agency also warned that Israel’s plan to move 1.4 million Palestinians from Rafah to the camps or to the so-called “humanitarian islands” in the north of the enclave would lead to disaster.
The international community continues to express alarm about the impending Israeli offensive on Rafah.
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“Where are you going to evacuate people when there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip, the north of the enclave is destroyed, there are unexploded shells everywhere and it is practically uninhabitable,” said UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Tuma.
“Enough. Any further escalation will lead to the apocalypse,” she added.
According to UNRWA, in the five months since the start of intensive bombing in response to Hamas attacks on Israel, at least 165 UNRWA staff have been killed, including while on duty in Gaza. More than 150 agency facilities were hit, including many schools.
Sea and Air Assistance
Humanitarian Ship , which departed Cyprus along the new sea corridor last Tuesday, is now moored off the coast of Gaza.
The initiative aims to deliver 200 tons of humanitarian aid to the northern part of the Strip once a pier is built south of Gaza City. It is a joint effort between UN partner World Central Kitchen and search and rescue charity Open Arms, who are reportedly working with Israeli authorities and the international community.
Another plan involves the US military and delivering two million meals a day using a temporary floating structure that has yet to be built.
While the UN has welcomed new ways of distributing aid by sea and air, humanitarian agencies have repeatedly stressed that such methods cannot replace supplies by land.
The threat of mass famine
The UN warns that famine is imminent in Gaza, especially in the north of the enclave, where aid agencies can access only rarely due to ongoing fighting and bombing, as well as repeated denials of access.
However, on Tuesday a World Food Program (WFP) convoy of six trucks arrived in northern area of the enclave after she was allowed passage from Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
The cargo was checked at the Kerem Shalom checkpoint in the south of the sector, after which the convoy was able to proceed north, IDF officials said. They added that more than 1,000 relief kits were airdropped in Gaza last week by foreign countries.