THOUSAND OSI Translation. Region: Spanish/Latin America/UN –
Source: United Nations – in Spanish 4
Headline: Israel-Palestine: UN condemns Israeli attack on NGO humanitarian aid team in Gaza
The death of seven humanitarian workers from the NGO World Central Kitchen in Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza has been strongly condemned by UN humanitarian officials, who reiterated their concern on Tuesday that “there is no safe space left in Gaza.” .
“This is not an isolated incident,” declared the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
“As of March 20, at least 196 humanitarian workers have been killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since October 2023. This is almost three times the death toll recorded in a single conflict in one year,” noted Jamie McGoldrick. The vast majority of that figure are UN workers.
The official reiterated calls for “all parties to the conflict, including the Government of Israel” to respect international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacking personnel distributing aid.
“The role of humanitarian workers is to alleviate the suffering of people in crisis. Their safety, along with that of the civilians they serve, must be guaranteed,” he said.
These statements came after World Central Kitchen reported that an Israeli airstrike had been responsible for the deaths of its aid workers in Deir Al-Balah.
Following this information and images of the NGO vehicle, which showed a large hole in the roof, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths expressed his outrage at the attack and described the victims as “heroes, murdered.” while they were trying to feed hungry people.”
A mission that had been agreed
World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris maintained that the NGO’s mission had been agreed with the Israeli authorities in advance and that the organization’s vehicle was “well marked, it was very clear: “It was World Central Kitchen.”
“How many more lives will be lost until there is a ceasefire?” said the head of the health agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a tweet. He said the WHO was outraged by the killing of aid workers, and that safety must be a basic requirement for all those carrying out relief work.
The main UN agency providing aid to the Palestinians, UNRWA, tweeted that it was devastated by the killing of seven aid workers, noting that 176 of its own staff have been killed since violence broke out on October 7.
In a video statement released Tuesday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the deaths of the aid workers in an Israeli attack were involuntary and tragic.
Previously, World Central Kitchen issued a statement stating that its convoy had been hit “despite having coordinated movements” with the Israeli Army, after the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of food aid at its warehouse in Deir-al-Balah, brought to Gaza by its newly devised sea route.
© Open Arms
Relief supplies provided by World Central Kitchen are loaded onto a ship leaving Italy (file).
Al-Shifa Hospital: The heart of healthcare ripped out
Referring to the destruction of the Al-Shifa hospital after a two-week siege by the Israeli Army, Dr. Harris stated that the heart of healthcare had been “ripped out” in the enclave.
In a stark assessment of the closure of the 750-bed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the WHO maintained that aid teams had been waiting for “days and days” for Israeli permission to access the damaged facility, where the Staff and patients endured “horrific levels of violence”.
“We have had contact with the staff; The directors (of the hospital) have told us that Al-Shifa has disappeared, that it can no longer function in any way” as a medical center, said Dr. Harris.
Reduced to rubble
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Harris said the center was now “in ruins” and that at least 21 patients had died during the Israeli Defense Forces siege.
As the situation deteriorated in Al-Shifa, medical staff had to move patients to an office space within the hospital compound without toilets and where there was no food or water; “In the end they were sharing a bottle of water among 15 people,” the WHO spokesperson continued.
He noted that medical staff “did not have the means to care for the patients, many of whom were seriously injured (or) intensive care level patients” equipped with urinary catheters but lacking urinary bags. “You can imagine the horror that has been experienced,” Harris said.
If permission is granted on Tuesday to reach Al-Shifa and the last remaining health facilities in northern Gaza, priorities for WHO teams include bringing medicine, fuel and food and assessing what other supplies are needed and how to provide Helps the most seriously injured and sick.
Access denied
“We have been trying to go for days and days, and most of our missions have been rejected,” the doctor said. “We’re not going to be able to provide the things that, say, a functioning hospital needs, but first of all, we have to do an assessment to know what we can do. Secondly (…) who needs to be evacuated (…) where can they go and what can we do to save the lives of the (remaining) patients.”
To date, hundreds of health workers have died “doing their job,” the WHO official said, along with 32,000 civilians, 70% of whom are women and children, amid constant Israeli bombings launched after the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7.
“It is difficult for us to understand the mortality figures beyond the reported figures of people killed in the bombings, because many people do not even reach the hospital,” said the WHO spokesperson.
Too small to survive
A team from the UN health agency is also scheduled to visit the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza City, where there is already widespread concern about the growing number of babies born with a weight too low to survive.
The center now admits at least 15 malnourished children a day, and the needs are “increasingly serious,” Dr. Harris insisted in a new call for a ceasefire. “The ceasefire, the UN resolution, must be taken seriously, the world has agreed that a ceasefire must occur. “It should have happened months ago, but it has to happen now.”
The most dangerously malnourished young people, who are at the “highest risk of imminent death if they do not receive urgent treatment”, can receive help at two specialized nutrition centres, associated with WHO, located in Rafah and another in Kamal Adwan.
Before the conflict broke out, Gazans were self-sufficient in food production and only 0.8% of children under five suffered from acute malnutrition. Today, in the northern governorates, that figure ranges between 12.4% and 16.5%, the WHO reported.
“Different doctors, especially in maternity hospitals, report a large increase in children born with low weight and who do not survive the neonatal period because they are too small,” Harris said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.
