The humanitarian network is currently stopped because the Internet has closed earlier this week After the latest fiber cable route, serving the central and southern areas were cut during intense fights.
“” While the breakdown continues, the partners cannot communicate or coordinate Response activities and people in need remain isolated and without the information they need to access vital support and emergency services ”, United Nations Coordination Office Ochha said in an update.
Connectivity A problem of life or death
The restoration of connectivity is urgent. OCHA said the Israeli army recently published a warning on social networks where areas marked in red on a map are considered dangerous combat areas, calling on people to stay away from them.
Although these areas apparently cover most of the territory of the Gaza Strip, Most people have no way to access the ad.
Meanwhile, the partners working on telecommunications are continuing the efforts to coordinate urgent repairs of the fiber optic cable routes in Gaza, including those which were previously damaged.
However, since April, the Israeli authorities have denied more than 20 requests for carrying out this work.
“It is essential that the repair of the lines is activated immediately,” said OCHA.
Humanitarian missions refused
The agency has also indicated that the Israeli authorities continue to deny many humanitarian movements aimed at providing support for the Gaza population, which has more than two million.
Thursday, they rejected eight of the 18 UN attempts to coordinate these movements, including efforts to recover wheat flour and fuel supplies.
Four other missions could not be accomplished, either because of the obstacles, or because they had to be canceled for security or logistics reasons.
The six remaining missions, which included the staff movement, succeeded.
‘Recipe for chaos’
The conditions continue to deteriorate in Gaza after 20 months of war, followed by a total blockade of aid and commercial products that started on March 2.
People are piled up in shelters or live in tents and lack basic essentials. For example, the accumulation of solid waste has an impact on health and environmental conditions, the United Nations refugee agency UNRWA said Friday.
Israel has temporarily lifted the ban in mid-May, and the UN was able to bring small amounts of key aid elements such as flour and drugs-although far from being sufficient to prevent famine from having an impact on the population.
Since the end of May, the UN and the partners have been sidelined while a new help distribution model has started its operations.
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, supported by Israel and the United States, uses private military entrepreneurs, according to the media. More than 200 people were killed and thousands of others injured by shots near his hubs.
The mechanism is “A recipe for chaos“UNRWA tweeted Friday, echoing the words of his chief Philippe Lazzarini.
“” It is armament to help and leads to fear, discrimination and growing despair“Said the agency.
“It’s time to lift the seat and leave the United Nations, including an UNRWA, do the work. Aid must be delivered safely and on a large scale. ”
“Hunger should never be encountered by bullets”
UN’s humanitarian affairs coordinator Tom Fletcher stressed the need to act now a declaration Posted late Thursday.
“Hunger should never be met with bullets,” he said. “Humanitarian workers must be allowed to do their job. Rescue aid must reach people in need, in accordance with humanitarian principles. ”
Fletcher said that attacks on civilians in Gaza “are unacceptable”, which includes the murder and injuries of hungry people looking for food and those who provide aid.
He said that the United Nations humanitarian convoys had been intercepted by armed Palestinian gangs, in danger of staff and drivers.
“Civilians who desperately need the food we are able to bring, have not been spared; Some have been killed by Israeli forces, and others crushed by trucks or stabbings trying to recover food, “he added.
The UN chief of rescue, Tom Fletcher, talks to a child in a UNRWA refuge during a visit to Gaza in February.
Let the humanitarian workers work
He also mentioned the incidents “concentrated around militarized distribution centers, where hungry people tell us that Israeli forces have opened fire on them”.
“” Hospitals report that they have received 245 deaths and more than 2,150 injuries in these areas in the past two weeks“He said.
In addition, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said Thursday that the Palestinians involved in their distribution had been killed, injured and captured by Hamas.
“Without immediate access and massively placed the basic survival means, We risk a descent into famine, another chaos and the loss of more lives“Warned the head of the United Nations.
“We are ready, as we have pointed out several times, to provide large-scale vital aid,” he said. “Let’s do our job.”
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
