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The head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Israel bans the delivery of humanitarian aid into the northern Gaza Strip, which is currently experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis due to Israel’s attacks.
“The Israeli authorities continue to deny humanitarian missions to reach the north with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement Monday.
“Hospitals have been hit and are left without power while injured people are left without care.”
The UNRWA chief said shelters run by the agency in northern Gaza are overcrowded.
“Some displaced people are now forced to live in the toilets,” he said, adding that Gazans trying to flee “are getting killed, their bodies left on the street.”
“Missions to rescue people from under the rubble are also being denied,” Lazzarini said.
The U.N. official called for allowing humanitarian assistance to all people in Gaza.
“Humanitarian agencies, including UNRWA, must get access to north Gaza,” he said. “Denying and weaponizing humanitarian assistance to achieve military purposes is a sign of how low the moral compass is.”
“No one should beg to assist or to be assisted,” Lazzarini said. “A cease-fire is the beginning to putting an end to this endless nightmare.”
Last week, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Israel’s ban on the entry of aid has left 200,000 people in northern Gaza without food or drinking water.
The Israeli army has continued a massive offensive, now in its 17th day, in northern Gaza amid a suffocating siege on the area.
The onslaught was the latest episode in Israel’s brutal onslaught that has killed more than 42,600 people, mostly women and children, and injured 99,800 others since last year following a Hamas attack.
The Israeli war has displaced almost the entire population of Gaza amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its violations of international law in Gaza.
Lazzarini called for aid organizations to be allowed access to the northern Gaza Strip, including UNRWA.
Sam Rose, UNRWA’s deputy director in the coastal strip, told U.S. broadcaster CNN on Sunday that “we’ve got three months of food supply waiting outside to feed the entire Gaza Strip.”
“Right now it is just not able to get in through the south,” he said.
Last week, the U.S. gave Israel a 30-day deadline to improve the aid supplies to the people in the coastal strip. Otherwise, U.S. officials claim arms deliveries to Israel could be jeopardized, an unconvincing statement as Washington has been unconditionally supporting Tel Aviv despite its genocidal attacks in the blockaded Palestinian enclave for the past year.
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Emil Kovács graduated from the Journalism program at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. During his journalism studies, he focused on data journalism, investigative reporting, and multimedia storytelling. He gained experience by writing for the university’s student newspaper, where he gained attention for his articles on social issues. After graduation, Emil began working as a reporter at a European news agency, where he conducts in-depth analyses of international news and current events.
