NEW YORK, Tuesday, June 3, 2024 (WAFA) – The humanitarian crisis in Rafah has reached a critical point, said the head of UN aid agency OCHA’s office in the occupied Palestinian Territory.
Andrea De Domenico, Head of OCHA’s Office in the occupied Palestinian territory, recently spent three weeks in the enclave, where over one million people have fled the southern city of Rafah following the step-up in Israeli military operations, according to Palestine refugee agency UNRWA.
Briefing journalists in New York, Mr. De Domenico added that the operational environment for humanitarians also remains dangerous and challenging, despite engagement with the parties.
“The events that have unfolded in Rafah since the seventh of May, with the subsequent move up to almost a million people that found refuge for months in Rafah and now that they’ve moved all in a sudden… The result of it is that the narrowing space that is left for civilians to conglomerate and leave is becoming more and more limited, and more and more crowded,” De Domenico said during a virtual press briefing at the UN.
The people of Gaza are “very welcoming people, they’re super they’re formidable guests,” De Domenico said, adding that the current dire situation on the ground is destroying “more and more this fabric progressively.”
He continued by saying that all hospitals in Rafah are “no more functional” and that there are only field hospitals.
With “more or less 950,000 people” left Rafah, he said “the operational environment remains extremely challenging” in the area.
Turning to remarks by Israeli officials suggesting the war on Gaza will continue until the end of the year, De Domenico said: “The perspective of having a war until the end of the year is simply terrifying in my mind.
“I was reflecting a little bit on all this dynamic of the criticism moved to the United Nations’ inability to deliver humanitarian. I’ve lived it on my skin in the last three weeks how complicated it is to operate,” he said. “I think there is no other place in the world where the system has been put to such level of challenges and stretch”.
