United Nations officials warn that the Gaza Strip has descended into a state of anarchy, obstructing efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of Palestinians in desperate conditions. Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea continues to be reported throughout much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in increasing civilian deaths, maiming, injuries, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
“Our office has documented alleged unlawful killings of local police and humanitarian workers, and the strangulation of supplies indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. Anarchy is spreading,” said Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
Speaking from Amman, Jordan, Sunghay, who has just returned from a nine-day visit to Gaza, told journalists in Geneva on Friday that conditions there have deteriorated significantly since his last mission to the Palestinian enclave several weeks ago.
“The people of Gaza are suffering immensely. It truly is desperate. People are on the move from north to south, again, although they are making the journey knowing it is fraught with danger,” he said.
“I saw a motorbike and trailer loaded with personal possessions smoldering on the road. There was nobody,” he said. “But it was clear no one could have survived the strike.”
Gaza's health ministry says 503 Palestinians have been killed since July 12, mostly in central Gaza. During that period, the United Nations said three mass casualty incidents occurred in different parts of Gaza, two of them in schools housing internally displaced persons (IDPs), killing nearly 200 Palestinians and wounding hundreds more.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reports that eight schools have been hit in ten days. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said attacks on schools in Gaza have become an almost daily occurrence.
“Israel’s evacuation order on July 9, one of the largest since October 7, has forced families into an impossible choice yet again — stay amid active hostilities or risk fleeing to areas still subject to attack and with hardly any space or services,” said Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Nowhere is safe for people in Gaza,” he added.
According to Gaza health officials, more than 38,800 people have been killed and more than 89,400 wounded in Israeli attacks in the enclave since the war erupted on October 7 following a major coordinated attack by Palestinian armed groups. Among the dead are at least 278 aid workers, 201 UN personnel, 500 health workers and 160 journalists.
For more than nine months, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza, with people dying from widespread violence and starvation, and the threat of famine looming. Leading UN officials have called the situation in Gaza "apocalyptic," "hell on earth," "beyond catastrophic," and said that the humanitarian community is "running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza.
According to the UN, up to 1.9 million people - or 90 percent of the population - are internally displaced throughout the Gaza Strip, including people who have been repeatedly displaced - some as many as 10 times.
The United Nations estimates the current population of the Gaza Strip at about 2.1 million, down from a projection of 2.3 million in 2024. While more than 38,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, some 110,000 Palestinians have reportedly crossed into Egypt to leave Gaza.
Israel's relentless assault on the enclave continues to pose significant risks to displaced people and humanitarian workers.
“We are also seeing the outcome of Israel’s dismantling of local capacity to maintain public order and safety,” Laurence said.
“There is looting, mob justice, extortion of money, family disputes, random shootings, fighting for space and resources, and we see youths armed with sticks manning barricades,” he said, adding that those conditions have led to the “entirely foreseeable unraveling of the fabric of society in Gaza.”
Ajith Sunghay said the outcome was predictable given the lack of security and a young, large and restive population in Gaza. Sunghay reiterated that there is no law enforcement in Gaza.
“Youth with a lot of energy, not knowing what to do. When the law enforcement has been disbanded, in this scenario, of course, there is looting,” he said. “When people are hungry and there is no law enforcement, there is looting, there is chaos, there is anarchy.”
He stressed that attention must be paid to the “extremely dangerous” situation. “We want the police to be brought back on the streets and to bring some order there.”
The hostile environment created by the war and the breakdown of civil order also posed enormous challenges to any meaningful humanitarian response to the enormous needs of the population. The United Nations and aid groups accuse Israel of closing most of the border crossings into Gaza - and preventing life-saving aid from reaching the more than 2 million people in dire need.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says “active conflict, access constraints, fuel restrictions, the ongoing power blackout, the lack of public order and safety, and other challenges continue to impede the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.”
“It is still extremely difficult to access areas north of Wadi Gaza, which requires coordination with the Israeli authorities and passage through an Israeli checkpoint,” an agency official said.
Despite its legal obligations and responsibilities as an occupying power and a party to the Geneva Conventions, Israel continues to fail to provide or even facilitate the delivery of essential supplies for the survival of some 2.1 million people still living in Gaza.
“There has been and there is an intentional restriction of aid going in,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said, noting that supplies are coming into Gaza only through “one single road,” the Kerem Shalom crossing, and that “that is done deliberately.”
“It is the legal responsibility of Israel not just to facilitate aid getting into Gaza, but to facilitate the safe distribution of that aid. None of these things have been happening for nine months,” he said, adding that the delivery of aid has nothing to do with “inefficiencies on the ground.”
“What there are, is disease on the ground, bombs from the sky and a deliberate, consistent unwillingness on the part of the authorities who have the legal and military power to prevent lifesaving aid from going into Gaza,” he said.
According to OCHA, intensified attacks, access restrictions, fuel shortages and the breakdown of law and order continue to create a highly volatile and risky operating environment for aid workers, further disrupting the delivery of life-saving assistance throughout the Gaza Strip.
Another constant concern is the repeated attacks on health services. Since the escalation of hostilities on October 7, there have been 1003 reported attacks on health care facilities in the occupied Palestinian territory.
As of Wednesday, only 15 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza and 45 out of 105 primary health care facilities were partially operational and able to receive new patients, although services are limited. According to humanitarian sources, there are currently about 1,500 hospital beds in Gaza to meet the needs of more than two million people, compared to 3,500 beds before the war.
The lack of bed capacity is compounded by the lack of medical supplies and equipment, leading to “unnecessary deaths, infected wounds and unnecessary amputations,” a World Health Organization (WHO) official warned Wednesday.
OCHA said Friday it is deeply concerned about the continued spread of infectious diseases due to severe overcrowding of shelters, severe shortages of clean water and abysmal sanitation and hygiene conditions in Gaza.
The poliovirus is spreading: WHO reports that six environmental samples of variant poliovirus type 2 have been detected in Khan Younis and Deir al Balah. Other infectious diseases are also on the rise in Gaza.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on social media Friday that the decimation of Gaza's health system - as well as shortages of medical supplies, constant displacement of the population, weakened sanitation services, poor water quality, ongoing access blockages and lack of security - are increasing the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio.
The entire population of the Gaza Strip is experiencing acute hunger and at risk of famine. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report for Gaza, released on June 25, shows that 96 percent of the population faces acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse, with nearly half a million people in catastrophic conditions.
According to the analysis, 2.15 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity, with 745,000 people (33 percent) classified in emergency levels (IPC Phase 4) and over 495,000 people (22 percent) facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 5).
Meanwhile, Israel's allies - including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany - continue to provide political and military support for a war against the civilian population that has already claimed more than 38,000 lives and is characterized by widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli forces.
These include collective punishment of civilians, use of starvation as a method of warfare, denial of humanitarian aid, indiscriminate killing of civilians, targeting of civilians, disproportionate attacks, forced displacement, torture, enforced disappearances, and other atrocity crimes.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.