NEW YORK, December 20, 2024 (WAFA) - UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer, Louise Wateridge, warned on Friday that hunger and dire living conditions, worsened by heavy winter rains and ongoing hostilities, continue to endanger lives in Gaza, which has become a “graveyard.'"
“The world is not seeing what's going on with these people, it’s impossible for families to shelter in these conditions,” said Louise Wateridge, from the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
Speaking from Nuseirat in central Gaza after heavy winter rains overnight and into Friday morning, the UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer insisted that “an entire society here is now a graveyard...Over two million people are trapped. They cannot escape. And people continue to have basic needs deprived and it just feels like every path here that you could possibly take is leading to death.”
"It's impossible for families to shelter in these conditions," Ms. Wateridge insisted. "Most people are living under fabric, they don't even have waterproof structures and 69 percent of the buildings here have been damaged or destroyed. There's absolutely nowhere for people to shelter from these elements."
With more heavy rain expected on Friday evening, UNRWA’s Wateridge emphasized the critical need to get aid into the enclave to support Gazans who have been uprooted multiple times by Israeli bombardment and who have little to protect themselves from the elements.
“It’s impossible for families to shelter in these conditions,” Wateridge insisted. “Most people are living under fabric, they don’t even have waterproof structures and 69 percent of the buildings here have been damaged or destroyed. There’s absolutely nowhere for people to shelter from these elements.”
Multiple and continuing aid obstacles imposed by the Israeli authorities have meant that humanitarians have had to prioritize food over shelter, leaving Gazans desperate and at risk from food stampedes.
“The certainty of winter has been the only thing that the United Nations has been able to plan for,” Wateridge maintained. “And yet we have still not yet been facilitated to bring in enough shelter supplies for people, because we have had to prioritize food. Women have been crushed to death waiting for a piece of bread.”
On Thursday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported that the Israeli authorities had “denied another UN request to reach besieged areas of North Gaza governorate with food and water. As a result, Palestinians in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and parts of Jabalya remain cut off from the essential assistance they need to survive.”
T.R.
