UN Geneva Press Briefing – 28 June 2024 (excerpt on Humanitarian Update from Central Gaza)

28 June 2024

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(Excerpt)

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Humanitarian Update from Central Gaza

Louise Wateridge, Senior Communications Officer at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), joined the briefing online from central Gaza and said that she had just returned to the Gaza Strip after four weeks. Ms. Wateridge stated that in that period, conditions had deteriorated significantly, with very limited access to fuel on the ground, restricted movement, and few – if any – waste management services in operation. The living conditions were extremely dire, the weather was extremely hot, with very few resources and limited water. UNRWA was desperately seeking support and looking for help to assist Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip.

Answering questions, Ms. Wateridge stated that people in Gaza were hungry and malnourished after enduring 8 months of food insecurity. The physical appearance of many colleagues and local people whom Ms. Wateridge knew personally had changed due to a lack of access to sustained, healthy food, fresh fruit and vegetables, she said.

On a question about the US-backed pier, Ms.Wateridge affirmed that UNRWA had always welcomed any aid that entered the Gaza Strip but underscored that UNRWA’s position was for the entry of humanitarian aid trucks through border crossings, stating that this was both safer and more cost-efficient than any air drops or using the pier.

Daniel Johnson, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, reminded reporters of the statement by the spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, on Thursday: that in spite of UN efforts to get fuel into Gaza there was still not enough reaching UN agencies inside the Strip.

In response to a question on health risks for associated with heat, Tarik Jašarević for the World Health Organization (WHO), stated that summer weather could lead to number of communicable diseases appearing in Gaza for several reasons, including water contamination, food spoilage, mosquitos and flies, dehydration and heatstroke.

WHO had recorded a number of 470,000 cases of diarrhea since the beginning of the conflict, with a majority due to lack of clean water. Mr. Jašarević emphasized that, for children under the age of 5, this combination of lack of food and water, coupled with diarrhea, could be a lethal combination.

Speaking to questions about amputations, Mr. Jašarević stated that while estimates were not available, an entire system would need to be in place for health workers to be able to save a limb, and adequate conditions were currently unavailable in Gaza with the ongoing hostilities. Consequently, if someone currently suffered an injury, they would not only risk losing their limbs and their capacity to live normally, but quite possibly their lives.

Answering a question on evacuations, Louise Wateridge of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) stated that the situation was as dire as it had ever been and was getting worse every day. She called for the immediate resumption of medical evacuations. In response to the same question, Tarik Jašarević for the World Health Organization (WHO), welcomed the previous day’s evacuation of 21 patients from Gaza. Mr. Jašarević noted that this was the first evacuation since the Rafah crossing’s closure on 7 May, after which it had become difficult logistically to receive approvals and evacuate people,which meant that an estimated 2000 people had not received critical life-saving specialized health care. He echoed Ms. Wateridge’s call, emphasizing that medical evacuations must be facilitated through all possible crossings.

On a question regarding looting, Ms. Wateridge confirmed that it had been on the rise and pointed to factors such as the lack of food and supplies after 8 months of war. She also underlined that money was not being printed or distributed, and most salaries had stopped being distributed. People had nowhere to obtain money, and with limited access to humanitarian aid supplies, they were desperate. She emphasized that because of the siege on the Gaza Strip, it had become a very dangerous and lawless situation on the ground, and the only answer was to provide more aid, more food, more medicine, to the people of Gaza.

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