‘Humanitarian response strangled’ by Israel amidst catastrophic situation in Gaza – UNRWA
Paramedics carry a body from the site of an Israeli attack on a school which housed displaced Palestinians, in the Remal neighbourhood of central Gaza City on 20 August 2024
Nurah Tape reports in The Palestine Chronicle on 27 August 2024:
“To describe the situation here, it’s just catastrophic,” Louise Wateridge, Senior Communications Officer, for UNRWA in Gaza said during a press briefing on Monday [26 August].
“The last couple of weeks we have had relentless forced displacement orders in the middle area, in the southern area and also in the Northern Gaza Strip, she added, “and what we’re seeing here is hundreds of thousands of people forced to move on a daily basis.”
Wateridge explained that the situation has really changed over the last few weeks and months. “What we’re seeing now is families, mothers, children dragging their belongings. Most people are moving by foot (as) there’s very limited access to any kind of vehicles for this kind of displacement now and people just don’t know where to go,” she stated.
The UNRWA official stressed that the conditions were “dire”.
‘Packed Shelter to Shelter’
She said, “If you see the humanitarian area – if you see the Khan Yunis, al-Masawi area – you can barely even see the sand on the floor anymore. It is just packed shelter to shelter. People are using the sand and building walls with the sand to stop the seawater coming into their makeshift shelters.”
Wateridge also pointed out that there are scorpions, mosquitoes, rats, mice, and snakes. “Among the population who are living in these conditions, we’re seeing an increase in (the) spread of disease,” she said, drawing attention to the first case of polio in the Gaza Strip in the last 25 years.