Nearly 1.5 million people are now crammed into the southern city on the border with Egypt, and with nowhere further to flee. ‘Terrifying’ situation A potential full-fledged incursion in Rafah “is terrifying, given the prospect that an extremely high number of civilians, again mostly children and women, will likely be killed and injured,” Mr. Türk…
More than half of Gaza’s population of over two million is now crammed into the city, which is located on the border with Egypt and originally home to some 250,000 people. Congestion has reached a point where normal routes are blocked by tents set up by families seeking any flat, clean space available, OCHA said. Garbage…
“We as the UN and Member States of the UN can bear witness,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told journalists in Geneva. “We can warn what might unfold with a ground invasion and we can make clear what the law says… under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes.”…
The warning from the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, comes nearly four months since Israel commenced a devastating bombing campaign in response to Hamas-led terror attacks on 7 October that left some 1,200 people butchered in southern Israeli communities and more than 250 taken hostage. “In recent days, thousands of Palestinians have been fleeing to…
“A traumatized and exhausted population” is being “crammed into a smaller and smaller sliver of land,” UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths warned on social platform X on Friday. But serious obstacles persist to bringing more aid to those in need amid relentless Israeli bombardment and intense fighting on the ground. UN humanitarian affairs coordination…
Volker Türk highlighted the dichotomy at the border crossing, describing it as a “lifeline” for the 2.3 million residents of Gaza over the past month, although “unjustly, outrageously thin.” But it is also “the gates to a living nightmare”, he continued, as people in Gaza “have been suffocating, under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling…
