WFP urgently calls for Gaza ceasefire amid dire humanitarian crisis
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The World Food Programme (WFP) has issued a pressing call for a ceasefire in Rafah and throughout Gaza, underscoring the severe challenges confronting forcibly displaced individuals, particularly children.
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A WFP-backed soup kitchen in Khan Younis - the organization is fast running out of food in Gaza. (WFP)
The World Food Programme (WFP) urgently appealed for a ceasefire in Rafah and across Gaza, emphasizing the dire conditions faced by forcibly displaced individuals, including children.
In a recent post on X, the WFP highlighted the exhaustion of those affected and the declining capacity to provide assistance as time passes. The organization stressed the immediate necessity for a ceasefire to address the worsening humanitarian situation in the region.
People and children displaced in #Rafah and across Gaza are beyond exhausted. And our ability to help them is deteriorating with every passing hour, every passing day.
— World Food Programme (@WFP) May 29, 2024
We need an urgent ceasefire NOW. pic.twitter.com/N1cTf2M0Rc
Earlier today, the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) organization called for an immediate end to the bombing in Rafah and Gaza.
Chris Lockyear, MSF Secretary-General, said, "Civilians are being massacred. They are being pushed into areas they were told would be safe only to be subjected to relentless airstrikes and heavy fighting," adding, "Entire families, made up of dozens of people, are crowded into tents and living in extremely difficult conditions. Over 900,000 people were forcibly displaced again as Israeli forces intensified their offensive on Rafah in early May."
In a statement on Wednesday, the MSF relayed that staff and patients at an MSF-supported trauma stabilization point in Rafah's Tal al-Sultan were forced to leave the facility amid the increasing aggression only 24 hours after the IOF bombed tents in what it called a "safe zone", killing at least 49 people and wounding over 250 others.
The Israeli occupation army claimed responsibility for the strike, claiming it was a "precision" attack to assassinate Hamas members.
Dr. Safa Jaber, an MSF gynecologist who is in the Tal al-Sultan tents with her family, expressed. "All of last night we heard clashes, bombings, and rockets being fired. Nobody knows what exactly is happening," noting, "We are scared for our children, scared for ourselves. We were not expecting this to happen suddenly. Where shall we go? We are struggling to find the basics that every human being needs to stay alive."
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The statement also called "Israel" out for disregarding the order by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to "immediately" halt its military attacks in Rafah and let in humanitarian aid. With that being said, it described all nations supporting "Israel" as "morally and politically complicit."
It urged the United States, United Kingdom, and allied European Union Member States to pressure "Israel" to stop the blockades and attacks.
It added that the shutdown of the MSF-supported trauma point in Tal al-Sultan came after an Israeli airstrike on the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah killed two staff and put the hospital out of service.
IFRC calls for Gaza ceasefire
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) called on Wednesday for a ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, where millions of people face worsening hunger amid a humanitarian catastrophe nearly seven months into the war on Gaza.
"We desperately need a political solution that will allow us to have a ceasefire to get aid in," IFRC President Kate Forbes said as quoted by Reuters in an interview in the capital, Manila.
"We're ready to make a difference. We have to have access, and to have access there has to have a ceasefire," she added.
Describing the situation in Rafah as "atrocious" during a visit in February, months before "Israel" launched a military assault on the southern Gaza city, Forbes said, "There was no not enough housing. There was no water, there weren't enough sanitation toilets. We had a hospital with no equipment... and unfortunately what I was afraid of has happened, and there wasn't going to be enough food."
"I plead with the governments on all sides to negotiate a ceasefire so that we can get aid in," she said.
"My job is to ensure that when it [ceasefire] happens, we can give the aid that's necessary. And so they need to do their jobs so I can do my job," the IFRC president added.
