Humanitarian aid to North Gaza mostly blocked for the last 2 months, UN says
UNITED NATIONS — Humanitarian aid North Gazawhere Israel launched a ground offensive on October 6 has been largely blocked for the past 66 days, the United Nations said on Tuesday. According to the World Organization, between 65,000 and 75,000 Palestinians no longer have access to food, water, electricity or health care.
In the north, Israel has continued its siege of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya, with Palestinians living there largely denied aid, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, said. Recently, approximately 5,500 people were forcibly displaced from three schools in Beit Lahiya to Gaza City.
Compounding the food crisis, there are currently only four UN-supported bakeries operating in the Gaza Strip, all in Gaza City, OCHA said.
Sigrid Kaag, the UN’s senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council behind closed doors on Tuesday afternoon that civilians trying to survive in Gaza are facing an “utterly devastating situation.”
She pointed to the breakdown of law and order and looting that has exacerbated a dire situation and left the UN and many aid agencies unable to deliver food and other humanitarian supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in need.
Kaag said she and other U.N. officials continue to repeatedly ask Israel for access for convoys to northern Gaza and elsewhere, to allow in commercial goods, to reopen. the Rafah crossing from Egypt in the south, and to approve dual-use items.
Israel’s UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment
The UN has arranged the logistics for an operation in Gaza, she said, but there is no substitute for the political will that humanitarians do not possess.
“The member states own it,” Kaag said. And this is what she is urging the members of the Security Council to do, and she continues to urge the broader international community to insist on the political will to address the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.