40,000 Palestinians have lost their lives, most of them are children and women, Highlights of the noon briefing by Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General – 15 August 2024

15 August 2024

(Excerpt)

GAZA

Volker Türk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that today marks a grim milestone for the world with 40,000 Palestinian lives officially confirmed to have been lost, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Most of the dead are women and children. This unimaginable situation, he said, is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war.

Mr. Türk said that on average, about 130 people have been killed every day in Gaza over the past 10 months.

He added that the Human Rights Office has documented serious violations of international humanitarian law by both the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups, including the armed wing of Hamas.

OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that hostilities and recurrent evacuation orders are driving a seemingly endless cycle of displacement – and making it increasingly difficult for people to access the humanitarian assistance they need to survive after 10 months of war. To give an example of the conditions in which people live now in Gaza, our teams were able to access two sites in Khan Younis today.

In addition to the difficulties getting to markets, the lack of food and high prices, families explained to our colleagues that due to the absence of cleaning and hygiene products, they are getting skin infections, particularly affecting their children.

They had to make their own shelter with whatever fabric, pieces of wood, or cartons they found. Children are attacked by rodents and insects at night due to poor shelter conditions. And yet they might need to leave again and start all over again.

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