Incessant Israeli attacks on Gaza’s infrastructure and the cold are making the Palestinian enclave “completely uninhabitable”, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has warned.
“I fear that many more civilians will die,” Ajith Sunghay, head of OHCHR for the occupied Palestinian territory, said on Friday.
“Continued attacks on specially protected facilities, such as hospitals, will kill civilians and have a further and massive impact on access to health care, as well as the safety and security of Palestinians in general. »
Sunghay said his office was also “very concerned about the impact of the rainy and cold weather” which was “entirely expected” at this time of year.
He said the weather “risks making an already unsanitary situation completely uninhabitable for the population. Most have no warm clothes or blankets.”
Most Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced by Israeli attacks, and many are crammed into overcrowded shelters where they are threatened by worsening weather, disease and a serious shortage of food, water and medicine.
Sunghay said it would be “disastrous” if shelling or street fighting in Khan Younis moved further south to Rafah, where some 1.3 million people are now massed in the border town with Iran. Egypt to try to escape Israeli forces. assault.
Meanwhile, Georgios Petropoulos, director of the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the months-long war has left 2.2 million people at risk of starvation in the Gaza Strip.
“Everyone in Gaza needs help now and the war must end,” he said.
