(Geneva) Looting and smuggling “are widespread” in the Gaza Strip and “prevent” the delivery of humanitarian aid, the head of the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) denounced on Monday.
“The breakdown of civil order is giving rise to widespread looting and smuggling that are hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid [which the population] desperately needs,” Philippe Lazzarini said during a meeting in Geneva of the Advisory Commission responsible for overseeing the conduct of the agency.
“Over the past nine months, we have witnessed an unprecedented failure of humanity in a land scarred by decades of violence,” the UNRWA official said, according to a copy of his remarks.
“Palestinians and Israelis suffered terrible losses and suffered enormously […] Gaza was decimated. For more than two million Gazans, it is hell. A nightmare from which they cannot wake up,” insisted the head of the agency, the main UN organization in the narrow Palestinian territory, which is the subject of intense and incessant bombardment and fighting carried out by the Israeli army.
This responds to the unprecedented attacks of October 7 on its territory by the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Faced with the difficulties of bringing aid into the territory – only the Kerem Shalom crossing point between Israel and Gaza is currently open – “hunger is at a catastrophic level” in the territory, according to UNRWA. “Children are dying of malnutrition and dehydration, while food and drinking water wait in trucks” on the border with Israel or Egypt, awaiting the possible reopening of the Rafah crossing, closed since early May .
UNRWA has been violently attacked by Israel, which accuses it of collusion with Hamas, which the agency vehemently refutes. These accusations prompted some countries to block funds intended for the agency, although a number have, in part, restored them. The United States, by far the largest contributor, still freezes funds for the agency.
Beyond Gaza, Mr. Lazzarini also spoke of the “tragedy” unfolding in the West Bank.
“More than 500 Palestinians have been killed there since October. Daily attacks by Israeli settlers, military incursions and destruction of homes and critical infrastructure are part of a well-oiled system of segregation and oppression,” denounced the official, who also noted an intensification of skirmishes in the Israeli-Lebanese border, which “threatens to metamorphose into a real war”.
Palestinian refugees scattered elsewhere in the region “are witnessing the greatest catastrophe since the Nakba,” Lazzarini said.
The “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” is the name given by Palestinians to the forced exodus of around 760,000 of them in 1948.
The Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Of 251 people kidnapped, 116 are still held hostage in Gaza, of whom 41 are dead, according to the Israeli army.
In response, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union. Its military has launched an offensive in the Palestinian territory that has so far killed 37,626 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry.
