Gaza is being ‘strangled…and running out’, UN warns as fuel and food supplies dry up amid Israeli blockade
- Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians tried to escape from northern Gaza
The ‘specter of death’ looms over Gaza, the UN warned yesterday as families continued to flee an expected Israeli invasion.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have tried to escape from northern Gaza where Israel has warned it will attack, despite fears the unprecedented exodus could lead to a humanitarian disaster.
Supplies of food, water, fuel and medicine are running dangerously low after Israel imposed blockades on the Palestinian territory and aid convoys were barred from entering its southern border with Egypt.
The UN said it could no longer provide water in its shelters, warning: ‘Gaza is being strangled… Gaza is running out of life.’
Yesterday it was reported that Israel reopened the water supply in southern Gaza following an intervention by US President Joe Biden.
Hospitals said they were at crisis point and trying to move the seriously ill and wounded would amount to a ‘death sentence’
As Israel’s war with Hamas entered a second week, the Palestinian death toll from airstrikes reached 2,670, including at least 700 children.
This means that, even before Israel’s impending ground invasion, Gaza’s death toll is almost double the 1,400 killed in the Hamas attacks that sparked the latest crisis.
More than 9,000 people were wounded and up to 1,000 are feared trapped or missing under buildings destroyed by airstrikes.
Hospitals said they were at crisis point and trying to move the seriously ill and wounded would amount to a ‘death sentence’.
Humanitarian agencies have warned that many more will die if aid and other supplies are not allowed into Gaza.
“The specter of death hangs over Gaza,” said Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. ‘With no water, no power, no food and no medicine, thousands will die. Plain and simple.’
UNRWA, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, said Gaza was facing an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster” and Israel’s blockades meant it could no longer provide aid.
Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said: ‘Gaza is being strangled and it seems that at the moment the war has lost its humanity.’ The Israeli Defense Forces dropped leaflets in northern Gaza telling residents to flee via designated routes to the south which they said would not attack between 10:00 and 13:00.
More than 9,000 people have been wounded and up to 1,000 are feared trapped or missing under buildings destroyed by airstrikes
But the authorities in Gaza claimed airstrikes hit a convoy of civilians on a supposed safe evacuation route, killing 70. Israel’s military denied it was responsible for Friday’s blast and suggested Hamas was to blame.
Hospitals in northern Gaza reported being overwhelmed by casualties from airstrikes and had no electricity or key medical supplies.
Videos posted online show bodies wrapped in white cloth being stored in empty ice cream freezer trucks after hospitals, morgues and cemeteries ran out of space.
Medical centers in the south reported being hit by airstrikes as well. The World Health Organization condemned the Israeli evacuation order as a ‘death sentence’ for those receiving care who were too ill to be moved.
Doctors and nurses risked their own lives to stay with their patients, officials said.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope have called for greater protection for civilians caught up in the conflict.