UNRWA chief: Post-apocalyptic atmosphere prevailing in Gaza
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The head of the main aid agency in Gaza laments the situation in the Palestinian enclave one year into the Israeli war on the Strip.
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The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini addresses the United Nations Security Council meeting at UN headquarters, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP)
Right now, Gaza is gripped by a "post-apocalyptic atmosphere", expressed the head of the main aid agency in the Palestinian enclave, a year after "Israel" waged its war on it.
"We are becoming wordless, we soon have exhausted all our vocabulary to try to describe what has become a wasteland," Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview for the BBC.
He indicated that "the war has been the war of all the superlatives, look at the number of civilians and people who have been killed, the number of humanitarian workers, UNRWA workers … [killed], the level of destruction, the number of times people have been moved around."
“We are becoming wordless, we soon have exhausted all our vocabulary to try to describe what has become a wasteland” @UNLazzarini to @BBC on the post-apocalyptic situation in #Gaza, as the humanitarian crisis worsens by the day with constant displacement & increasing violence pic.twitter.com/cljPc45B7u
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 9, 2024
On the occasion of one year of the war on Gaza, Lazzarini posted a lengthy statement on X condemning the ongoing war on the Strip.
"Twelve months of brutal war have transformed the Gaza Strip into an unrecognizable sea of rubble, and a graveyard for tens of thousands of people, among them far too many children," he said.
Lazzarini stressed that one year later, "not a day goes by without families in Gaza being subjected to unspeakable suffering, forced displacement, disease, hunger, and death," emphasizing that it has become a daily norm for the two million people being bombed in the besieged enclave.
"A year of profound loss, grief, and suffering. A year of dehumanization and disregard of international law; a free fall descent into barbarism. In Gaza, civilians continue to bear the brunt of the war."
He touched on the record number of UNRWA members being killed, saying that as of now, more than 220 UNRWA team members have been killed, detailing that it is "the highest death toll in the history of the United Nations."
He added, "Children have been the first and most to suffer. Beyond the killing and injury, every child in Gaza is traumatized many with life-long invisible scars."
Moreover, Lazzarini said, "More than 650,000 children are losing another year of learning. Instead of being in classrooms, they are sifting through the rubble in despair and fear. The destruction of essential infrastructure has reached catastrophic levels."
According to the statistics, he revealed that more than two-thirds of UNRWA buildings have been hit and deemed unusable, the vast majority while sheltering displaced people under the UN flag.
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