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A UN official warned that the current arrangement to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt is “doomed to failure,” and condemned Israel’s imposition of “collective punishment” on the residents of the Strip.
The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said: “Let us be clear, the small number of aid convoys that were allowed to enter through Rafah does not compare to the needs of more than two million people stranded in Gaza.”
Lazzarini added that the “current arrangement” is doomed to failure unless there is a political will to make the flow of aid serious and compatible with the unprecedented humanitarian needs.
According to United Nations estimates, about 500 trucks were entering the Gaza Strip daily before October 7.
Lazzarini considered that “the siege currently imposed on Gaza is collective punishment,” noting that UNRWA employees are “a ray of hope at a time when humanity is sinking into its darkest moments.”
“We firmly believe that the true price of this latest escalation will be measured in the lives of children, those lost in this violence and those changed forever,” said Catherine Russell, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7, during which members of the movement infiltrated areas around the Gaza Strip through the separation fence and attacked Israeli positions, and Israel has responded with intense bombing since then.
The movement’s Ministry of Health announced – on Monday – that the death toll as a result of the Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip had risen to 8,306, including 3,457 children.
