Representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Palestine to Al-Ittihad: An unprecedented collapse of the humanitarian situation in Gaza

Abdullah Abu Deif (Rafah, Cairo)

Dominic Allen, representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Palestine, said that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is witnessing an unprecedented collapse at all levels, while field hospitals remain the only means of survival for thousands of residents in the Strip, which has been witnessing an unprecedented crisis since October 7. the past.
The representative of the United Nations Population Fund added, in special statements to Al-Ittihad, that the Fund works in cooperation with all international organizations to provide humanitarian assistance, especially to pregnant women who are facing a crisis represented by the massive shortage of health services and medicines and the collapse of the health system in a way that makes them give birth without anesthesia. Dominic Allen pointed out that the residents of the stricken sector need an increase in humanitarian aid, especially medicines and medical devices that help provide them with medical and humanitarian relief.
The UN official added, “Everyone in Gaza feels severe suffering, and those working within humanitarian and official institutions who are making a huge effort are no different.”
The representative of the United Nations Population Fund called for the necessity of joint action between international forces and organizations to provide relief to the residents of Gaza, to return the medical sector to work at full capacity, and to ensure its security so that it is not exposed to further losses. Dominic concluded by saying, “Effective steps must be taken during the coming period to reduce the scale of the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe affecting the population of the Gaza Strip, whose number exceeds two million people, and to support places designated to receive the displaced and help increase medicines and medical aid in particular.”
Yesterday, Israel intensified its attack on Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, directing tanks west, while Jordan announced that its military field hospital in the city was severely damaged due to nearby bombing.
The Jordanian army held Israel responsible for the damage caused to the hospital as a result of the Israeli bombing of its surroundings.
People fled from another hospital, Nasser Hospital, and the surrounding area, as tanks approached, after a statement by the Israeli army saying that it had come under fire from the area.
Palestinian health officials said that seven were killed in Israeli air strikes that damaged homes near the hospital.
Sean Casey, coordinator of the World Health Organization's emergency medical teams in Gaza, said on January 9 that many workers at Nasser Hospital had left for shelters in the south, leaving only one doctor left to care for more than 100 burn victims.
About a third of Gaza's hospitals are still functioning, some only partially.
Sounds of explosions resulting from shelling and air strikes rang out farther west in Khan Yunis, as Israeli tanks advanced, and lines of thick black smoke rose from the sites of the explosions.
Israeli forces made their way to the center of Khan Yunis more than a month ago, and Defense Minister Yoav Galant said on Monday that the intensive military operations in the south are nearing their end, after weeks of similar statements regarding northern Gaza.
But fighting broke out in Jabalia, a densely populated area in northern Gaza, yesterday, a day after Israeli tanks stormed parts of the north that they had left last week.
Israel announced a reduction in its operations in northern Gaza in early January, as part of what it said would be a more careful approach to its war, after operations that destroyed entire residential neighborhoods.