The United Nations announced that it made 41 attempts this month to reach Palestinians besieged in northern Gaza with life-saving aid, but the Israeli occupation army obstructed all of their arrival.
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the United Nations, said in a press conference, “The Israeli authorities rejected 37 of these humanitarian missions, and the four missions that were approved were met with obstacles on the ground, and only achieved part of their tasks.”
He added that parts of northern Gaza have been under Israeli siege for more than 50 days, and that civilians there are being subjected to intense bombardment and are in dire need of assistance.
He explained that families who fled northern Gaza in search of security and shelter in Gaza City also face an extreme scarcity of supplies and services, in addition to overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions.
He pointed out that all humanitarian workers face very difficult situations, so we have repeatedly requested the provision of more entry points into the Gaza Strip and more ways for distribution throughout the Strip.
In turn, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stressed that international humanitarian law requires protecting civilians and ensuring that their necessary needs for survival are met, whether they remain in their places or flee from them.
Winter crises
With the advent of winter, risks increase for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians living in temporary shelters. Sewage accumulates in densely populated areas, exposing them to the risk of disease outbreaks. These factors also increase the risk of collapse of damaged buildings in which displaced families reside.
Yesterday, about 7,000 families residing in temporary shelters on the Gaza coast were affected by heavy rains, according to preliminary assessments conducted by the Office of OCHA and its partners. The water flooded thousands of tents and destroyed people’s belongings and shelters.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that it has 2,500 pieces of tarpaulins and plastic sheets at the Kerem Shalom crossing, but the main challenge to getting them into Gaza is security concerns along the way.
On the fifth of last October, the occupation army began a ground invasion of the northern Gaza Strip under the pretext of “preventing the Hamas movement from regaining its power in the region,” while the Palestinians say that Israel wants to occupy the northern Gaza Strip and turn it into a buffer zone after displacing its residents.
With American support, since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war on the Gaza Strip that has left more than 146,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded – most of them children and women – and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters. In the world.