Oct. 27 (UPI) — The head of the United Nations Palestinian relief agency on Friday urged a humanitarian cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war to ensure aid reaches those in need in Gaza.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philppe Lazzarini said a “meaningful and uninterrupted flow” of aid is needed to prevent loss of life as “basic services are crumbling in Gaza.”
“As we speak, people in Gaza are dying. They are dying only from bombs and strikes. Soon, many more will die from the consequences of siege imposed on the Gaza Strip,” he said.
Lazzarini warned that supplies of medicine, food and water are running out and that Gaza is “on the brink of a massive health hazard as the risks of diseases are looming” after the streets “have started overflowing with sewage.”
Several convoys carrying water, food and medicine have gotten in through Egypt’s Rafah crossing, but the aid allowed in so far is a trickle of what normally flows in to supply Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people and no fuel is being allowed in.
“These few trucks are noting more than crumbs that will not make a difference for 2 million people,” Lazzarini said,
Speaking from Jerusalem, Lynn Hastings, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said in normal times more than 780 trucks with fuel would have gone into Gaza since Oct. 7, when a Hamas attack on Israel sparked the most recent fighting.
She added that due to the lack of fuel deliveries, UNRWA has been forced to rely on a sole fuel pump near the Rafah border, with supply dwindling as access to even that source has been “sporadic.”
Bakeries will soon be only able to break bread for a million people for another 11 days as they ration fuel. Water desalination plants face the risk of going off line, Hastings warned.
Additionally, Hastings said raw sewage pumping will become impossible “whether it’s tomorrow or Monday,” leaving wastewater to flow into the streets.
“All humanitarian assistance and humanitarian issues have to be unconditional,” including the release of 224 hostages held in Gaza and the transport of aid for those in the Gaza Strip, she said.
U.N. World Food Program representative Samer Abdeljaber said civilians in Gaza say conditions are “a nightmare — and we have no way to wake up from it.”
Israel imposed the siege on Gaza and began bombing after Hamas slaughtered 1,400 people in Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli civilian settlements near the Gaza border.
