UN officials have warned of horrific conditions in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing Israeli onslaught, adding that a million Palestinians remain trapped, without access to basic aid and essential needs.
The UN Human Rights Office spokesperson, Louise Wateridge, said on Friday that more than a million people remain trapped in horrific conditions in Gaza, deprived of their basic needs and humanitarian supplies.
Wateridge pointed out that “the residents cannot escape, and it seems that every path leads to death.”
On the other hand, UNICEF stated that “the war on children in Gaza” is a stark reminder of the global community’s responsibility to do everything possible to end their suffering, emphasizing that “a generation of children bears the burden of gross human rights violations and the destruction of their future.”
UNICEF’s main communications officer in Gaza, Rosalia Paulin, added, “Gaza is one of the saddest places for us as humanitarian workers because every effort to save a child’s life is lost due to violent destruction, and for more than 14 months, children have been on the brink of this nightmare, with over 14,500 children killed and thousands more injured.”
UNICEF warned of the difficulty of the situation with the arrival of winter in Gaza, where children “feel cold and damp, and are barefoot,” while many of them still wear summer clothes. They search among the rubble for plastic pieces to burn, and diseases are spreading in the Gaza Strip due to the lack of health services and continuous attacks on hospitals.
The UN Human Rights Office said that the weather conditions worsened in recent days and will continue as expected, but the agency had to prioritize food over shelter assistance.
The UN Human Rights Office added, “We have supplies outside the Gaza Strip waiting to enter the coastal region for six months. This is the reality that humanitarian workers face here; we have to choose between providing people with food or shelter.”
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that on Friday, “the Israeli army committed three massacres in the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, among them 77 slain residents and 174 injured, who were moved to medical centers.”
Israel has now killed at least 45,206 Palestinians, including more than 17.581 children, and 12,048 women, and injured more than 107,512, largely children and women, in various parts of the destroyed coastal enclave since October 7, 2023. Thousands of Palestinians remain missing, largely under the rubble of bombarded homes, buildings, destroyed streets, and alleys.
