“Palestinian people are angry, frustrated, disappointed and suffering on a scale that has to be seen to be truly grasped” Notes from visit to Gaza by the Head of OHCHR for the Occupied Palestinian Territory

29 November 2024

Notes from visit to Gaza – Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: Jeremy Laurence, joined by Ajith Sunghay, the Head of OHCHR for the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Every time I visit Gaza, the level of destruction just gets worse and worse. This time I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger. After 13 months of unrelenting violence, the threat of death by starvation, illness or bombardment is real. Local markets are now non-existent. The UN has been unable to take any humanitarian aid into North Gaza where around 70,000 people are still believed to be present due to repeated impediments or rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities.

Acquiring basic necessities has become a daily, dreadful struggle for survival. I saw dozens of women and children scavenging in large landfills. It is so obvious that massive humanitarian aid needs to come in – and it is not. It is so important the Israeli authorities make this happen.

The breakdown of public order and safety is exacerbating the situation with rampant looting and fighting over scarce resources. As prices of the meagre commodities that are available have skyrocketed, people have been shot and killed by unknown armed men while trying to buy simple sustenance such as bread. These are not isolated incidents. The anarchy in Gaza we warned about months ago is here. Entirely predictable, entirely foreseeable. And as with all of the death and destruction I’ve seen during my past trips to Gaza, entirely preventable.

Palestinian people are angry, frustrated, disappointed and suffering on a scale that has to be seen to be truly grasped. Several young men and women expressed to me their feelings of despair and desire to leave the Gaza Strip, where they are left bereft of any safety, any security, and any hope. With the destruction of every layer of their community: the education system, the governance system, places of worship, their local support networks, they see no future here.

Young women, many displaced multiple times, stressed to me the lack of any safe space and privacy in the makeshift tents and accommodation they had been forced into. One young person told me she felt like a “beggar” and that she had lost all of her self-confidence. Others said that cases of gender-based violence and rape, abuse of children and other violence within the community has increased in shelters as a consequence of the war and the breakdown of law enforcement and public order. Protection needs are massive, but response still lags significantly.

Still, the community heart beats strong. There are people who step in to help. We are training — and working with — youth ’protection responders’. One told me: “I have lost everything, including family members, house and all belongings, but I continue to help others in need.”

Between the onset of winter and rain, there’s an ever-pressing need for proper shelters and winter clothes. The conditions in Gaza city are horrendous. Thousands of recently displaced people, predominantly from Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, are sheltered in partially destroyed buildings or makeshift camps in inhumane conditions with severe food shortages and terrible sanitary conditions. The women I met had all either lost family members, were separated from their families, had relatives buried under rubble, or were themselves injured or sick.

Breaking down in front of me, they desperately pleaded for a ceasefire.

I met with fishers in Khan Younis. Over 4,000 fishers and 14,000 others depend on this industry. Since the start of the war, trawlers, nets and other equipment have been destroyed and around at least 67* fishers have been killed by the Israeli military. Despite this, out of sheer desperation some of them enter the sea at the risk of being shot at by the Israeli Navy.

These daily struggles for survival are plaguing Gazans while bombardment continues unabated across the strip. Areas around Gaza city have faced unrelenting and heavy bombardment by the Israeli military. Forced displacement from North to Middle and South Gaza continues. As they move, the shelling and bombing continues.

The common plea by everyone I met was for this to stop. To bring this to an end. Enough. Please. Enough.

* Other sources indicate 80 fishers killed.