Hyderabad:With the siege of Israeli military getting harder by the hour in the tiny land strip of Gaza in response to the bloody incursions of Hamas, the UN World Food Prorgramme has warned that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of running out of food, water, electricity and critical supplies.
The UNWFP and the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA have delivered fresh bread from “bakeries still able to operate” and food to over 1,75,000 displaced people across 88 shelters on Wednesday, with plans to “reach over 8,00,000 people across Palestine”.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), mass displacement has been continuing, increasing by 30 per cent in just the previous 24 hours.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, in a media briefing in New York, said the cumulative figure is pegged over 3,38,000, "of whom over two thirds are taking shelter in schools run by UNRWA." Nearly 218,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) are sheltering in 92 UN schools.
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The damage so far-As Israel continued to pummel the Strip with bombs, more than 2,500 units of housing have been destroyed or severely damaged and rendered uninhabitable. Nearly 23,000 houses have sustained moderate to minor damage, according to the UN.
Until the time of this report by the UN, at least 88 education facilities have been struck by bombs. Of which 18 are UNRWA schools including two being used as emergency shelters for displaced people and the rest 70 were run by Palestinian Authority.
"This means that for the sixth consecutive day, more than 600,000 children have had no access to education in a safe place in Gaza", said the Spokesperson.
The WFP also stressed that its food assistance stocks were running out and called for urgent aid access.
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Gaza hospitals at breaking point-The World Health Organisation (WHO) said hospitals in Gaza are "at a breaking point."
According to the UN health agency, hospitals have just a few hours of electricity each day. This means they have to force a ration on depleting fuel reserves to sustain just "the most critical functions" in the already overcrowded treatment areas.
The woes compound with acute shortages of medial supplies and it has limited the response capacity, WHO said.
Call to Hamas for hostages release-UN-appointed independent rights experts on Thursday urged Hamas to release people taken hostage during its attack on Israel. They also called on Israel to stop targeting civilians in the Palestinian enclave.
The experts, who include Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, called for urgent accountability for the “horrific crimes committed by Hamas”.
“Intentional starvation is a crime against humanity”-The rights experts have condemned Israel’s “indiscriminate” attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. They also expressed their aversions towards Israel's tightening of the “unlawful blockade” against the enclave.
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“There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime,” they said.
They warned of a severe humanitarian crisis in the Strip and of the “inescapable risk of starvation” faced by its population, adding that “intentional starvation is a crime against humanity”.
Citing media reports, the rights experts said the current conflict, which is expected to escalate further, has claimed at least 2,400 lives. More than 100 Israelis and foreign nationals, including children and older persons, are being held hostage in Gaza, they said.
Water crisis-The UN spokesperson said the water crisis is worsening across Gaza and in UNRWA emergency shelters "due to damaged infrastructure, lack of electricity needed to operate pumps and desalination plants, as well as limited supply of water in the local market."
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"Water supplies cannot be replenished due to the total blockade on the Strip by the Israelis authorities. Fuel cannot be brought in, and Israeli water suppliers can no longer deliver water in Gaza."
Child births-The UN's sexual and reproductive health agency UNFPA expressed its concerns for the safety and wellbeing of women and girls who have been caught up in the violence in Gaza.
According to the UNFPA, Gaza is home to 50,000 pregnant women, who are currently unable to access essential health services. It said about 5,500 of them are due to deliver their babies in the coming month.
The agency predicts that it would be 166 child births per day and most of them taking place with inadequate access to healthcare or even clean water.
"UNFPA is prepositioning supplies to be ready to deliver if siege conditions are lifted. We have provided medicines essential for safe delivery to the health authorities in Gaza and we are providing dignity kits to UNRWA shelters."
