On social media, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warned of the humanitarian catastrophe there.
“People in Gaza, including our UNRWA colleagues, are fainting from extreme hunger. They are starving to death. Meanwhile, just a few kilometers away, supermarkets and stores are overflowing with food and other goods,” it stated.
The UN called on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to lift the siege and allow the entry of food and medicine into the coastal enclave.
On the same social media, UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini also condemned the blockade. “No one is spared: caregivers in Gaza also need care. Doctors, nurses, journalists, and humanitarian workers are hungry. Many are now fainting from hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, searching for food has become as deadly as the bombings; more than a thousand starving people have been killed since the end of May in so-called distribution centers, he criticized, referring to the mechanism created by Israel and the United States.
The so-called distribution schemes are a sadistic death trap, Lazzarini asserted, sharply criticizing these facilities.
In this regard, he accused Israeli soldiers of randomly opening fire on crowds “as if they were given a license to kill (…) with total impunity.”
This cannot be our new norm; humanitarian assistance is not the work of mercenaries, he warned.
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