Gazans face 'darkest chapter of their history since 1948': UNRWA chief
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The UN estimates that 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced and are receiving goods from only around 100 aid trucks per day.
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A Palestinian child drags bricks at a camp for displaced people in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip where most civilians have taken refuge, on December 13, 2023. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned Wednesday that the people of Gaza were "running out of time and options" amid the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Strip.
"They face bombardment, deprivation and disease in an ever-shrinking space," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva.
Lazzarini described the situation in Gaza as "hell on earth".
People in the Strip were "facing the darkest chapter of their history since 1948, and it has been a painful history," he expressed.
"Israel's" relentless bombardment and ground invasion in Gaza has left the Strip in ruins, killing more than 18,600 people, mostly women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Strip.
The UN estimates that 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced and are receiving goods from only around 100 aid trucks per day.
"We are very far from an adequate humanitarian response," Lazzarini mentioned.
When aid was delivered, it was often not more than a can of tuna or beans and one bottle of water for a large family to share, he pointed out.
The Israeli siege on #Gaza has left behind horrific realities in the Strip as medication, food, water, and fuel are not allowed in.
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) December 13, 2023
The World Food Programme announced that 9 out of 10 people in northern Gaza are no longer eating every day. "Israel" is using starvation as a… pic.twitter.com/v1OWtXjGGK
"The people of Gaza are now crammed into less than one-third of the original territory near the Egyptian border," he added, hinting that the dire situation might soon spark an exodus.
"It is unrealistic to think that people will remain resilient in the face of unlivable conditions of such magnitude, especially when the border is so close," he said.
The city of Rafah on the Egyptian border, the only crossing where aid is entering Gaza, has seen its population explode from 280,000 to more than a million, Lazzarini said.
And while most aid delivery in Gaza depends on UNRWA, he warned the agency's capacities were "on the verge of collapse."
Read more: UN warns bombing, infections pushing Gaza hospitals to extremes
