Gaza (Union)
The World Food Programme’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, Corinne Fleischer, warned of the increasing challenges facing humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip as winter approaches and violence against humanitarian workers escalates, hampering the programme’s efforts to combat famine.
During a press conference in New York, the UN official pointed out that about two million people live on only 11% of the area of the Strip, which has led to severe overcrowding in temporary camps and on the beaches of Gaza, where 60 to 70 people live in classrooms that usually accommodate 20 to 30 people.
She added that the deteriorating security situation had led to the evacuation of key warehouses and community kitchens, limiting the programme’s ability to distribute food assistance, stressing that the number of people reached last month was much lower than usual.
She called for increasing crossing points and simplifying humanitarian operations to restore the ability to help those in need.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced yesterday that 82 percent of the targeted children had received the first dose of the polio vaccine, despite Israeli obstacles.
The ministry said in a statement: “As of Tuesday evening, 82.5 percent of the targeted children in the Gaza Strip received the first dose of the vaccine against polio, which is still ongoing.”
She added: “The number of children who received the first dose reached 527,776 children, including 49 percent females and 51 percent males.”
She continued: “The Ministry, UNRWA, World Health Organization and UNICEF teams continue their efforts in the vaccination campaign, despite the ongoing aggression on the Strip.”
She pointed out that “despite the great danger to the movement of crews and their travel between vaccination centers, the people of the Strip continue to be keen to vaccinate children against the disease.”
In another context, a UN commissioner warned that the inability to educate Palestinian children in Gaza due to Israeli attacks could lead to “the loss of an entire generation.”
This came in a statement by the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, on the “X” platform yesterday, regarding education, schools, and the conditions of school-age children in the Gaza Strip.
“Gaza has become a place where schools are no longer schools,” Lazzarini said.
He said: “After Israel began its attacks on October 7, UNRWA was forced to close its schools and convert them into shelters for displaced Palestinians.”
“The classrooms that used to receive children are now either full of displaced families or destroyed,” he added.
He added: “School desks have been replaced with beds, and many schools are no longer places of learning, but rather hotbeds of despair, hunger, disease and death.”
The UN official recalled that half of Gaza’s 600,000 school children were receiving their education in UNRWA schools before the war on the Strip.
He pointed out that Palestinian children were unable to go to school in the new academic year due to Israeli bombing.
“The longer children stay out of school in the ruins of a destroyed place, the greater the risk that they will become a lost generation,” he said.
#warns #increasing #challenges #aid #distribution #Gaza