The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Gazans “holding on by a thread”, UN aid worker’s harrowing testimony shows
A UN humanitarian freshly back from Gaza described on Tuesday seeing families dig makeshift septic tanks with spoons and shell-shocked toddlers who lost limbs under Israeli bombing, amid continuing obstacles to aid delivery.
After three months spent in the enclave over the course of two deployments, Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer with the UN’s aid coordination office OCHA came back with “stories that will haunt [her] for the rest of [her] very privileged life”.
“We really, really should not speak about living conditions” in the Strip because no Gazans have “living” conditions, she told reporters in Geneva. “What they have, if you look closely, is survival conditions. And barely. They’re holding on by a thread.”
Ms. Guerda gave reporters a glimpse of the daily reality of a population which has “lost nearly everything” in the grips of mass forced displacement with “no centimetre” that is safe in Gaza. “You have 10 to 15 minutes to leave your building because it’s going to be bombed. Your kids are sleeping in the room next door. You wake them up, they whine... And you have to make split-second decisions to decide what to pack, what’s essential,” from birth certificates to baby formula, she recounted, stressing that this has been the experience of scores of “people who lived in Gaza city, in Jabalia, in Khan Yunis, in Deir el Beleh, and now Rafah”.
She also spoke of the horrific aftermath of the bombing of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza earlier this month as part of an Israeli military operation to release hostages held by Hamas, in which some 270 people were killed and 700 injured according to Gaza’s health authorities. “We were working a couple of kilometers away, and the walls, doors and windows of our building were shaking,” she said. Among the hundreds of people “maimed for life” as a result of the two-hour bombing, she spoke of the children who lost limbs and whom she met the next day at the nearby hospital, “many of whom reminded me of my own two little toddlers,” she added
“They were staring into the void – too shell-shocked to produce a sound or a tear,” she said.
Compounding the horror is the dramatically insufficient aid access in the enclave, where humanitarian delivery remains “a puzzle” amid “ongoing fighting, the public order and safety vacuum” as well as “regular attacks” on aid storage facilities, administrative challenges and hours spent waiting at checkpoints.
Describing the water and sanitation crisis in the Strip, Ms. Guerda spoke of the harrowing experiences of families whom she’s seen “dig makeshift septic tanks with spoons, using toilets and pipes from destroyed buildings so they could have a little bit of privacy and hygiene near their tents”.
The lack of fuel is hampering not only aid delivery, but also protection efforts including humanitarians’ ability to reach unaccompanied children on the move, Ms. Guerda warned. Moreover, mass displacement from Rafah since the beginning of Israel’s offensive there on 7 May meant that people lost access to the malnutrition screening centres which humanitarians had set up there. As a result, there are “thousands of children who were being followed or who were being screened that all of a sudden we lost track of,” she said.
Hunger is prevalent in Gaza and according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report published on Tuesday, the situation in the enclave “remains catastrophic” with a “high and sustained risk of famine across the whole Gaza Strip".
The report found that 96 per cent of the population is facing “acute food insecurity at crisis level or higher (IPC Category 3+), with almost half a million people in catastrophic conditions (IPC Category 5)”.
Ms. Guerda insisted that desperate Gazans urgently “need decision-makers to finally make a decisive gesture to put an end to the relentless way in which they are being knocked down after every attempt to get back up”.
“And they need the support of the rest of the world to do that,” she concluded.
-ends-
STORY: Gaza aid worker testimony - OCHA
TRT: 2:21”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 25 JUNE 2024 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior wide shot: Palais des Nations, Flag Alley.
2. Medium lateral shot: Speakers at the podium of the press conference from behind; speaker on screen in the Press room.
3. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “We really, really should not speak about living conditions there because none of them have living conditions. What they have, if you look closely, is survival conditions. And barely. They’re holding on by a thread.”
4. Wide shot: Journalists, cameraperson and technicians in the Press room.
5. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “You have 10 to 15 minutes to leave your building because it’s going to be bombed. Your kids are sleeping in the room next door. You wake them up, they whine, probably. And you have to make split-second decisions to decide what to pack, what’s essential. And how do you define “essential”? Birth certificates, IDs, baby formula?”
6. Wide lateral shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screen.
7. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “The children who lost limbs that I met the next day at the nearby hospital, many of whom reminded me of my own two little toddlers: they were staring into the void – too shell-shocked to produce a sound or a tear.”
8. Medium shot: Journalists in the Press room.
9. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “Delivering aid in Gaza is a daily puzzle, across the board. You know it all: the ongoing fighting, the public order and safety vacuum, the insufficiency of absolutely everything we need, the regular attacks on our storage facilities, the pile of administrative impediments.”
10. Wide shot: Technicians’ booth; journalists in the Press room.
11. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “I’ve seen families dig makeshift septic tanks with spoons, using toilets and pipes from destroyed buildings so they could have a little bit of privacy and hygiene near their tents. You know, put some distance between themselves and their own waste.”
12. Wide shot: Cameraperson and technicians in the Press room.
13. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):“When your population shifts and all of a sudden, people lose their access to their services, and the situation worsens, I believe for several weeks there were thousands of children who were being followed or who were being screened that all of a sudden we sort of lost track of because they moved.”
14. Wide lateral shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screen.
Similar Stories
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Monday delivered his global update to the Human Rights Council, highlighting key issues and trends, and the human rights situation in more than 30 countries.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
The UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the human rights situation in Myanmar was among the worst in the world.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNICEF
Haiti: Massive surge in child armed group recruitment – UNICEF
The ongoing emergency in Haiti is crushing children’s chances of an education and a better future as scores of youngsters are recruited by heavily armed and violent gangs, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk today called on UN member states to act with urgency towards a ceasefire and to ease the suffering of the Sudanese people.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
“We are at an inflection point in the crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | HRC
Investigators tasked by the UN Human Rights Council to track alleged grave abuses of power by top Nicaraguan officials on Wednesday insisted that the International Court of Justice should prosecute what they called the systematic and systemic repression of the country’s people.
1
1
Edited News | WHO
Gaza: Polio campaign reaches target, additional medical corridors needed, says WHO
The second mass polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has reached almost 548,000 children under the age of 10, according to the UN health agency (WHO). That represents 92 per cent of the 591,000 due to be vaccinated, said Dr Rik Peeperkorn, Representative of the World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) to journalists in Geneva via videolink from Gaza.
1
1
1
Edited News , Conferences | OHCHR , UNOG
At the opening of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk called for a solution based on the rights, needs and aspirations of the Ukrainian people.
1
1
1
Edited News , Conferences | HRC
World’s ‘warmongers’ must stop, UN chief tells Human Rights Council
With no end to numerous protracted conflicts - not least in Ukraine, three years to the day since the full-scale Russian invasion - UN chief António Guterres on Monday scorned the world’s “warmongers” for trampling on people’s most fundamental rights.
1
1
1
Edited News , B-roll , Conferences | HRC
High-level representatives of the UN and its Member States arriving at the Palais des Nations in Geneva to attend the world's top human rights forum.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA , UNICEF , UNWOMEN
In the almost three years since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country’s people have endured “psychological terror…displacement and hardship”, top UN aid coordinator Matthias Schmale said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing the UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani made the following comments: “The situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is deteriorating sharply, resulting in serious human rights violations and abuses, such as summary executions, including of children, and conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence. There have also been attacks on hospitals and humanitarian warehouses, as well as threats against the judiciary.”