Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 2nd August. Head of the UN humanitarian affairs office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Andrea De Domenico on Thursday said that scaling up aid delivery remains a challenge in Gaza as the war is into its 10 months.
Andrea De Domenico briefed the reporters in New York from Jerusalem as the Israeli authorities have not renewed his visa.
He reflected his time in the region, recalled that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had said that Gaza was becoming a graveyard for children and “unfortunately he was right, and this is what Gaza became”.
He said the international community “has to answer the question of how much human suffering can be tolerated in the name of security.”
Mr. De Domenico said that over the past 10 months, he had witnessed “the systematic dehumanization of civilians” in both Gaza and the West Bank, and “the absolute physical and psychological exhaustion of an entire population.”
He voiced concern over “the growing anger towards Israel, awakening the dark forces that could fuel antisemitism”, noted that the UN continues to call for all leaders to speak out against antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry and hate speech, which only reinforce stigma and marginalization.
Andrea De Domenico said it was “kind of a coincidence” that his final briefing was taking place on the eve of the 300-day mark.
He said recent weeks had seen more evacuation orders in Gaza, which sparked more displacement, and it was “particularly worrisome” that they affected areas that Israeli had unilaterally declared as safe zones.
Over 200,000 people were displaced but spontaneous returns have been occurred in the past few days.
“And we will keep on trying to deliver a response to those people in those areas,” he said.
“The reality, though, remains that our ability to deliver has never gone up to scale.”
According to the OCHA the toll of the war is still increasing.
Over 39,000 people in Gaza have killed, 91,000 injured, 90 per cent of the population 1.9 million people is displaced and 60 per cent of residential buildings have been destroyed, with an estimated 49 million tonnes of debris generated.
The food insecurity is at its highest level, and polio was recently found in sewage samples.
“In this environment we do a lot,” he said.
“We provide people with water, food, tents, clothing, hygiene items, nutritional supplements, and cash. We equip hospitals with bed stretchers, medicine, meals and facilities with medical evacuation.”
He said “all these efforts are nowhere near where they should be in terms of helping people”, highlighted the need to scale up operations.
Andrea De Domenico also pointed to “rays of hope”, such as the start that day of a programme to provide informal learning for some 30,000 children, which is being run by UNRWA and the UNICEF
He addressed the situation in the West Bank, where the UN has verified the killing of 572 Palestinians, including 141 children, since 7 October.
Most were shot by Israeli forces and settlers. 14 Israelis were killed during the same period.
He noted that demolitions have continued, and they now seem to be “spreading all over and also affecting houses that are in areas that were for many years untouched”.
Over 1,300 structures been demolished, 40% were inhabited displacing nearly 3,000 people.
The search and rescue operations “have become more and more frequent” and “seem to be more military operations rather than police enforcement operations”, resulted in “huge devastation to civilian infrastructure.
“We have seen, for example, streets completely demolished, and sewage network demolished, and that of course has an impact on public health.”
He reported that the Israeli military’s “attitude” towards humanitarians is also becoming more aggressive.
“We have been systematically stopped at checkpoints and identified. They request the staff to step out of the vehicle, take out the keys. They want to ID every single staff and it seems that this is unfortunately a growing trend”.
He noted lack of permits and visas for staff is also becoming a problem for international NGOs in the West Bank.
Mr. De Dominico said he got the visa for a year and after the war began, they were shortened to 3 to 6 months.
He was given a one-month extension and warned that it would not be renewed.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back is the publication of the Children and Armed Conflict report from the UN and they alluded to long-standing issue of reporting that OCHA has been doing,” he said.
He concluded “But this has been communicated verbally and there is no formal communication that I’ve received, despite asking repeatedly.”
Comments are closed.