{"id":299522,"date":"2024-08-01T09:32:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T13:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&#038;p=299522"},"modified":"2024-08-02T15:59:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T19:59:24","slug":"humanitarians-efforts-nowhere-1aug24","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/humanitarians-efforts-nowhere-1aug24\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanitarians efforts \u2018nowhere near where they should be\u2019 300 days into Gaza war: OCHA Press conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>1 August 2024<\/p>\n<h2>Press conference by Andrea De Domenico, Head of Office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, virtually from East Jerusalem, on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode\"><iframe title=\"Gaza: humanitarian update - UN press conference\" width=\"1320\" height=\"743\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/18ngJ86M6XI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Scaling up aid delivery remains a challenge in Gaza as the war reaches the 300-day mark, the head of the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said on Thursday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Andrea De Domenico was speaking from Jerusalem in his final briefing to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York as the Israeli authorities have not renewed his visa.<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on his time in the region, Mr. De Domenico recalled that the UN Secretary-General had previously said that Gaza was becoming a graveyard for children and \u201cunfortunately he was right, and this is what Gaza became\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said the international community \u201chas to answer the question of how much human suffering can be tolerated in the name of security.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>&#8216;Systematic de-humanization of civilians&#8217;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Mr. De Domenico said that over the past 10 months, he had witnessed \u201cthe systematic dehumanization of civilians\u201d in both Gaza and the West Bank, and \u201cthe absolute physical and psychological exhaustion of an entire population.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also voiced concern over \u201cthe growing anger towards Israel, awakening the dark forces that could fuel antisemitism\u201d, noting 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.<\/p>\n<p>The top humanitarian said it was \u201ckind of a coincidence\u201d that his final briefing was taking place on the eve of the 300-day mark.<\/p>\n<p>The war erupted in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 which left some 1,250 dead. More than 250 people were taken to Gaza as hostages, and 115 remain in the enclave.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Death and destruction mounting<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Mr. De Domenico said recent weeks had seen more evacuation orders in Gaza, which sparked more displacement, and it was \u201cparticularly worrisome\u201d that they affected areas that Israeli had unilaterally declared as safe zones.<\/p>\n<p>More than 200,000 people were displaced but spontaneous returns have been occurring over the past few days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd we will keep on trying to deliver a response to those people in those areas,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reality, though, remains that our ability to deliver has never gone up to scale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the toll of the war is still increasing. More than 39,000 people in Gaza have killed, 91,000 injured, 90 per cent of the population -1.9 million people \u2013 is displaced, and 60 per cent of residential buildings have been destroyed, with an estimated 49 million tonnes of debris generated.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, food insecurity is at its highest level, and polio was recently found in sewage samples.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn this environment we do a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, he said \u201call these efforts are nowhere near where they should be in terms of helping people\u201d, highlighting the need to scale up operations.<\/p>\n<p>He also pointed to \u201crays of hope\u201d, such as the start that day of a programme to provide informal learning for some 30,000 children, which is being run by UNRWA, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, and the UN Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF)<\/p>\n<h2><strong>West Bank violence<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Mr. De Domenico also 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. Fourteen Israelis were killed during the same period.<\/p>\n<p>Demolitions have also continued, and they now seem to be \u201cspreading all over and also affecting houses that are in areas that were for many years untouched\u201d. In total, more than 1,300 structures been demolished, nearly 40 per cent of which were inhabited, displacing nearly 3,000 people.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, search and rescue operations \u201chave become more and more frequent\u201d and \u201cseem to be more military operations rather than police enforcement operations\u201d, resulting in \u201chuge devastation to civilian infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have seen, for example, streets completely demolished, and sewage network demolished, and that of course has an impact on public health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also reported that the Israeli military&#8217;s &#8220;attitude&#8221; towards humanitarians is also becoming more aggressive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe 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\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Lack of permits and visas for staff is also becoming a problem for international non-governmental organizations in the West Bank.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about his own situation, Mr. De Dominico said visas were previously given for a year and after the war began, they were shortened to three to six months.<\/p>\n<p>He was recently given a one-month extension and warned that it would not be renewed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe straw that broke the camel&#8217;s back is the publication of the Children and Armed Conflict report from the United Nations, and they alluded to long-standing issue of reporting that OCHA has been doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut this has been communicated verbally and there is no formal communication that I&#8217;ve received, despite asking repeatedly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; 1 August 2024 Press conference by Andrea De Domenico, Head of Office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, virtually from East Jerusalem, on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. &nbsp; &nbsp; Scaling up aid delivery remains a challenge in Gaza as the war reaches <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/humanitarians-efforts-nowhere-1aug24\/\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2377,2477,2565,1699,2545,2805],"document-source":[2169,6169],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2517,1769,1945,1829,2005,1737,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-299522","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-multimedia","document-category-news-item","document-category-press-briefing","document-category-press-conference","document-category-un-news-item","document-category-video","document-source-office-for-the-coordination-of-humanitarian-affairs-ocha","document-source-united-nations-department-of-global-communications","document-subject-access-and-movement","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-racial-discrimination","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/299522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/299522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299555,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/299522\/revisions\/299555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=299522"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=299522"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=299522"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=299522"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=299522"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=299522"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=299522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}