Due to intensifying Israeli airstrikes, the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has surged to more than 5,000, including more than 2,000 children. As the humanitarian disaster in the narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea further unfolds, UN organizations and humanitarian organizations have repeated their urgent calls for a ceasefire and more aid convoys. There is no electricity, no water, no fuel in Gaza, with food supplies running dangerously low.
More humanitarian aid flowed into the Gaza Strip on Sunday and Monday, but the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned that it would run out of fuel by Wednesday, complicating further assistance amid ongoing Israeli aerial attacks on Gaza and the looming threat of an Israeli ground invasion. Aid deliveries entering Gaza have not included fuel.
“Without fuel, there will be no water, no functioning hospitals and bakeries,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general. “Without fuel, aid will not reach many civilians in desperate need. Without fuel, there will be no humanitarian assistance.”
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is the largest humanitarian actor in the Gaza Strip.
Lazzarini said that “without fuel, we will fail the people of Gaza whose needs are growing by the hour, under our watch. This cannot and should not happen.”
“I call on all parties and those with influence over them to immediately allow fuel supplies into the Gaza Strip and to ensure that fuel is strictly used to prevent a collapse of the humanitarian response,” the UNRWA chief said.
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt opened Saturday morning for the first time since Israel began its siege. A convoy of about 20 trucks delivered food, water, medicine, and other necessities to Gaza residents. 17 more truckloads of humanitarian aid passed into Gaza on Sunday. Another 40 were expected on Monday, some 20 trucks reportedly crossed the border today.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said Sunday the delivered aid was "another small glimmer of hope for the millions of people in dire need of humanitarian aid. But they need more, much more."
The UN has stressed that to respond to soaring humanitarian needs, at least 100 aid trucks per day are required.
Palestinian officials also expressed disappointment that Gaza did not receive supplies of fuel.
"Excluding the fuel from the humanitarian aid means the lives of patients and injured will remain at risk. Gaza hospitals are running out of the basic requirements to pursue medical interventions," the Gaza Health Ministry said, adding that the aid was only 3 percent of what it used to get into Gaza before the crisis.
The United Nations has been pressing Israel and Egypt to allow aid to flow freely into Gaza, where more than 2 million people need assistance after two weeks of bombing and a strict blockade of water, food and fuel by Israel. The UN said the aid would be received and distributed by the Palestinian Red Crescent, with the consent of Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Over 1.4 million people – nearly two thirds of the total population of Gaza - have been displaced due to the attacks by the Israeli military or an Israeli evacuation order. Nearly 600,000 civilians are sheltering in 150 UNWRA installations in increasingly dire conditions. Over 15 percent of the internally displaced people (IDPs) are estimated to have disabilities and specific needs.
According to the UN agency, an unknown number of IDPs remain in UNRWA schools in Gaza City and the north. UNRWA is no longer able to assist or protect them. Unconfirmed reports indicate that maybe thousands of IDPs are returning to northern Gaza, due to continuous Israeli bombardments in the south, and the inability to find shelter there.
On Saturday, the Israeli military reportedly dropped leaflets in Arabic throughout Gaza City warning residents choosing to stay that they may be considered “complicit with a terrorist organization”, though under international humanitarian law civilians must be protected whether they move or stay.
Intense airstrikes that continue across the Gaza Strip have taken a heavy toll on the United Nations, with UNRWA reporting that 35 of its staff members have been killed since Israel has started bombarding.
Gaza officials say more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since 7 October. While women and children have made up more than 60 percent of the fatalities, among the dead are alone more than 2,000 children. At least 15,200 people have been wounded. Many casualties, estimated at more than 1,000, are still trapped under the rubble, and rescue teams are unable to reach affected residential areas due to security risks, lack of equipment, and severe road damage.
At least 40 percent of all housing units in the Gaza Strip, a densely populated area, have been either destroyed or damaged since the start of the hostilities. Entire residential neighborhoods have been razed to the ground.
A water crisis is looming in the UN shelters and throughout the Gaza Strip due to damaged infrastructure, lack of electricity needed to run pumps and desalination plants, and limited water supply on the local market. Water supplies cannot be replenished due to the near total blockade of Gaza by Israeli authorities, and Israeli water suppliers can no longer deliver water to Gaza.
The UN has warned that people – particularly young children – will soon start dying of severe dehydration.
The United Nations, humanitarian organizations, and human rights groups have urgently called on Israel and Palestinian armed groups to stop targeting civilians and allow them access to basic services. The UN and non-governmental organizations have also urged an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
On October 7, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, including fighters from the militant Hamas group, launched thousands of rockets toward Israel and breached through a perimeter fence of Gaza at multiple locations. Members of armed groups entered into Israeli towns, communities, and military facilities near the Gaza Strip, killing and capturing Israeli forces and civilians.
Overall, more than 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals, most of them civilians, were reportedly killed and more than 4,900 injured, most of them on October 7. Some 200 people, including Israelis and foreign nationals, are held hostage in Gaza.
In another development, independent UN experts today called on all lawyers advising the Israeli military to refuse legal authorization for acts that may amount to war crimes in retaliation for the Hamas attacks on Israel.
“As Israel responds to Hamas and conducts operations in Gaza, all lawyers advising the military must identify and seek to prevent actions that may amount to war crimes. They have a professional duty to deny legal authorization for criminal acts,” the experts said.
“Lawyers must refuse to give legal authorization for actions that violate international law.”
The call comes after another group of independent UN experts on Thursday raised serious humanitarian and legal concerns over Israel tightening its 16-year siege of the enclave and its population and long-standing occupation, depriving more than 2 million people of essential food, fuel, water, electricity and medicine.
The experts warned that the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited under international humanitarian and criminal law. The unlawful denial of humanitarian access and depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival are also a violation of international humanitarian law.
“The complete siege of Gaza coupled with unfeasible evacuation orders and forcible population transfers, is a violation of international humanitarian and criminal law. It is also unspeakably cruel,” the UN experts said.
They also recalled that the “willful and systematic destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure”, and “cutting off drinking water, medicine, and essential food is clearly prohibited under international criminal law”.
“It is time to immediately cease fire and ensure urgent and unimpeded access to essential humanitarian supplies, including food, water, shelter, medicine, fuel and electricity. The physical safety of the civilian population must be guaranteed,” the UN experts said.
Further information
Full text: Lawyers advising the Israeli Military must act to prevent massive human rights violations and war crimes, refuse legal authorization for actions that violate International Law, Special Rapporteurs’ statement, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, released October 23, 2023
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/ijudiciary/statements/statement-sr-ijl-2023-10-19.pdf
Full text: Gaza: UN experts decry bombing of hospitals and schools as crimes against humanity, call for prevention of genocide, Special Rapporteurs’ statement, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, released October 19, 2023
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/gaza-un-experts-decry-bombing-hospitals-and-schools-crimes-against-humanity