WNAM MONMITORING: The UN on Monday said nearly 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the Gaza Strip since Israel shattered the recent ceasefire deal, with no arrangements made for civilian safety.
“Our humanitarian colleagues tell us that across Gaza, Israeli attacks continue unabated, causing systematic, large scale civilian casualties,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference.
The people in Gaza “including many children, are being killed, injured and maimed for life,” Dujarric said.
“Survivors across Gaza are being displaced repeatedly and forced into an ever shrinking space where their basic needs just cannot be met,” he added.
“Overall, we estimate that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced yet again since the breakdown of the ceasefire. That’s 18% of all Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.
Dujarric also emphasized that “no arrangements to secure their safety and survival have been made — a responsibility that falls on Israel as the occupying power.”
He warned that humanitarian aid efforts are at a breaking point and said: “We cannot sustain this for much longer unless the crossings are reopened immediately for humanitarian goods and equipment that will be essential to the survival of people in Gaza.”
Citing the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Dujarric reported that “all attempts to pick up commodities have been brought in and dropped at the crossings have been denied,” and that “most attempts to coordinate these movements result in access being denied.”
On Israel’s killing of paramedics caught on video, Dujarric said that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “very much aware of the video and I think, like anyone who has seen it, is just shocked by those images.”
He reiterated the UN’s call for an “independent, transparent and effective investigation to what happened.”
Regarding polio vaccines, Dujarric said: “There’s been no vaccine, no food, no fuel, no supplies have gone in at all for over a month, so and I’m not aware of any exception for polio vaccines.”
The Israeli army renewed a deadly assault on Gaza on March 18 and has since killed nearly 1,400 people, injured over 3,400 others, and shattered a January ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in the enclave.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to escalate attacks on Gaza as efforts are underway to implement US President Donald Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from the enclave.
More than 50,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.
