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If there is a hell on earth today, its name is northern Gaza, UN humanitarians say

After reports that Israel has agreed to implement four-hour pauses in the fighting in areas of northern Gaza to allow civilians to move south, UN humanitarians on Friday reiterated urgent calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and unimpeded, secure access of aid deliveries into the Palestinian enclave.

“If there is a hell on earth today, its name is northern Gaza. People who remain there, the corners of their existence is death, deprivation, despair, displacement and, literally, darkness,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian affairs coordination office, OCHA. He added that “the entire” Gaza Strip had been plunged into darkness since 11 October, when the electricity grid was shut down and fuel was stopped from entering.

OCHA reported that hundreds of thousands of people remaining in the north continue to struggle to find the bare minimum of water and food to survive. All municipal water wells have shut down again due to the lack of fuel, halting the supply of water for domestic non-drinking uses.

An Naser Children’s Hospital in Gaza city was hit during an airstrike, reportedly killing three people and injuring dozens more.

“What do you tell your children in such a situation? It's almost unimaginable that the firework that they see in the sky is out to kill them, because that's what it looks like. So, of course, we advocate for a humanitarian pause, for a humanitarian ceasefire that covers the entirety of the of the Strip,” Mr. Laerke told reporters at the United Nations in Geneva.

OCHA reported that on Wednesday some 50,000 people fled areas to the north of Wadi Gaza, a valley that separates the northern from the southern part of Gaza, through a “corridor” opened by the Israeli military. Images showed people walking, pushing wheelchairs with elderly and displaced people, or using donkey karts. The development will only worsen the already massively overcrowded facilities of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) whose facilities are already overwhelmed by the number of people seeking refuge from Israeli bombardments.

“We have heard that some facilities are at full-time capacities. Other facilities are at 10 times capacities. We hear stories of one toilet per 160 people, one shower per 700 people. These are just mind-boggling figures. And it gives you an idea of the day-to-day human challenges in terms of preserving people's human dignity,” Mr. Laerke said.

According to OCHA, prior to the current crisis, 500 trucks a day on average crossed into the enclave. Mr. Laerke noted that “yesterday, a total of 65 trucks carrying food, medicines, health supplies, bottled water, blankets and hygiene products, as well as seven ambulances crossed from Egypt into Gaza via the Rafah crossing. That brings the total number of trucks that have entered Gaza since the 21st of October to 821.”

Amid fresh reports on Friday morning that a yard at the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering, was struck by bombardments, Dr. Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the UN World Health Agency (WHO) said that 20 out of a total of 36 hospitals in Gaza had been destroyed.

“We've lost 20 (hospitals), that means we've got 16 (remaining). But [they] are not functioning in the way you or I would recognize a hospital functioning,” said Dr. Harris. “They are managing to keep the bare minimum of services and receive people. But they are not being able to function where they do not have any of the adequate supplies. They do not have the anesthetic medications. They do not have the disinfectants, and they are massively, massively overcrowded.”

WHO said they are “desperately concerned” about the levels of infectious diseases. The WHO reported that they are seeing diarrhoea rates surging massively. “We normally see 2,000 cases per month. We're seeing over 22,000, cases and huge numbers of respiratory infections that still spread everywhere.”

In addition, WHO’s Dr. Harris reported that “we are seeing crush injuries, burns and yes, indeed, people have severe damage to their bones, having been under rubble, having been crushed.”

The WHO spokesperson reiterated that “once we have access, I'm sure orthopedic surgeons will be very, very welcome. But the critical thing, as I said, is we need safe access and a means to provide those teams in a way where they can truly support the health system and that the beleaguered doctors and nurses who are doing extra ordinary things under impossible conditions.”

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Humanitarian crisis in Gaza - OCHA - WHO

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