Shaaban Bilal (Gaza, Cairo)
UN officials warned against repeatedly targeting relief and international teams working in the Gaza Strip, stressing that these practices undermine humanitarian work and the relief movement in the Strip, from which hundreds of thousands of people who are in dire need of urgent aid benefit.
The Regional Director of Media at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the Middle East and North Africa, Ammar Ammar, said that targeting the World Central Kitchen is the latest in a long series of attacks that have targeted humanitarian workers over the past six months, which has increased the number of relief workers. Those killed in the war reached 196 people, including 175 United Nations personnel.
Ammar stressed to Al-Ittihad that this confirms the urgent need to protect humanitarian workers in accordance with international humanitarian law, and to facilitate their work in providing basic aid under conditions fraught with risks and challenges, as they strive to deliver basic supplies of medical needs, food, water and sanitation.
He pointed out that UNICEF is working in extremely dangerous conditions, and its teams are still present on the ground, trying to save the lives of people and children who are living in tragic humanitarian conditions, in light of the spread of famine in the Gaza Strip, especially the northern regions where the population mainly depends on humanitarian aid. .
For his part, the spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza, Raed Al-Nims, said that any “targeting of workers from international organizations hinders efforts working in the field of health and relief, and this targeting is part of a systematic policy since the beginning of the war to target workers in relief programs, international organizations and services.” And health facilities. Al-Nims explained, in a statement to Al-Ittihad, that there are hundreds of victims of health workers, including doctors, paramedics, and nurses from international relief and humanitarian organizations, especially UNRWA, Doctors Without Borders, and most recently, the International Kitchen, and these targets affect the The progress of humanitarian work, undermines the relief movement, and threatens to force organizations out of work in light of the bad conditions witnessed in the Gaza Strip.
In the same context, the spokesman for the Red Cross in Gaza, Hisham Muhanna, called for the necessity of protecting the humanitarian crews working in the Strip so that they can respond to humanitarian needs and provide relief, medical and food support to hundreds of thousands of those affected.
Muhanna considered, in statements to Al-Ittihad, that targeting workers in humanitarian and relief organizations, the most recent of which is the “World Central Kitchen,” has serious repercussions for the crews on the ground in carrying out their role and reaching those affected, which increases the severity of the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
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