– Hospitals have been attacked and health workers have been captured. Shelters are emptied and burned to the ground. Aid workers are refused to rescue people buried in the rubble. Families are being split up and truckloads of boys and men are being driven away, says the UN’s acting head of emergency aid, Joyce Msuya.
– What the Israeli forces are now doing in northern Gaza can no longer be allowed, she says in an announcement.
– Such an obvious lack of respect for fundamental human rights and the laws of war must be stopped, says Msuya.
The death toll is rising
According to Palestinian emergency services, 100,000 people are now trapped in northern Gaza without access to food, medicine and fuel.
The Palestinian Civil Defense can no longer operate in the area, where Israeli forces claim to be hunting members of Hamas and other militant groups.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 96 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours alone, and the number of people killed since October last year has thus passed 43,000. The vast majority of victims are children and women.
Over 100,000 others are injured. Many of the victims are maimed for life, but have to look far for the health care they need. Over half of the hospitals in Gaza have had to close, the remaining ones are overcrowded and lack most of them.
Unbearable
UN Secretary-General António Guterres is shocked by Israel’s warfare in northern Gaza, which now threatens everyone in the area.
– The situation for the civilian population trapped in northern Gaza is unbearable, he said via his spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Sunday.
– Repeated attempts to deliver vital emergency aid such as food and medicine are still denied with few exceptions by the Israeli authorities, which puts countless lives at risk, said Dujarric.
Barbarians
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Ap) also reacts strongly to Israel’s warfare and describes the situation as “barbarism”.
– It is alarming when we witness imminent starvation, death and disease for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in northern Gaza. And it’s happening now. In our time, he adds VG.
– Now it is important that the drama such as this does not disappear into the square language of big politics. This is about people, despair, fear and hopelessness, says Støre.
Støre reminds us of the principles laid down in international humanitarian law.
– When these principles are broken, as in Gaza, we find ourselves in barbarism, he says.
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