The UN announced Thursday the resumption of its relief operations in the Gaza Strip after a 48-hour suspension in the wake of the Israeli forces killing of seven World Central Kitchen staff in air strikes on their convoy in the Strip.
The World Health Organization reached two hospitals in Gaza and handed out medications to them, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Dujarric said that because of what happened to World Central Kitchen “we had to pause to regroup and reassess”, adding that a convoy will deployed tonight, “hopefully making it to the north”.
The team spoke with patients who were able to leave the health facility after the siege, with one saying “doctors resorted to putting salt and vinegar on people’s wounds for lack of antiseptics, which are nonexistent,” Dujarric said. In addition, a WHO team reported dire conditions following Israel’s two-week-long siege of the Al-Shifa Hospital, he said.
“They d
escribed dire conditions during the siege, with no food, water or medicine available,” he said.
OCHA suspended its relief operations for 48 hours to allow conducting further assessments of security issues affected workers on ground and civilians, he added.
For his part, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “The situation in Gaza is disastrous”.
“Once again, WHO demands a ceasefire. Once again, we call for all hostages to be released, and for lasting peace,” he said.
Almost six months into the war, humanitarian conditions are worsening, according to UN agencies on the ground.
On his way to Gaza on Thursday, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, reiterated that there is no safe place in the enclave.
The Occupied Palestinian Territory “has become one of the world’s most dangerous and difficult places to work”, he wrote on social media before his departure
Source: Kuwait News Agency