The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) called the situation in the Gaza Strip “dire” and warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory.
The situation is “devastating” at the moment in Gaza, the WFP’s Palestine country director, Samer Abdeljaber, said in an interview on Thursday.
We’re seeing shortages of fuel, of water [and] electricity. We are seeing our shelters that are overcrowded. We don’t have capacity.
He added:
The bakeries are not going to be able to provide food for tomorrow. So tomorrow is going to be a very difficult situation for the people in the shelters and the people outside the shelters.
“It’s a dire situation in the Gaza Strip that we’re seeing evolve with food and water being in limited supply and quickly running out,” Brian Lander, deputy head of emergencies at WFP, told Reuters.
We’re providing food to thousands of people that have sought shelter in schools and elsewhere across the territory. But we’re going to run out very soon.
He urged Israel and Egypt to create secure corridors for agency workers to be able to bring supplies into Gaza and to make sure UN staff could work safely in the area.
We’ve seen a number of sites that are considered humanitarian, or clinics and schools that have been hit by the strikes. So … we again … we are calling on the parties to the conflict to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said fuel for hospital generators in Gaza would run out shortly, adding that its stocks of aid and medicine within Gaza were stranded for want of safe passage.
Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, said earlier today that no power, water or fuel would be allowed to enter Gaza until Israeli hostages are returned home.