UN Chief in Gaza Describes “Underreported Tragedy” as Humanitarian Crisis Worsens

“Just getting through the day – and surviving the night… It must feel like a miracle in the Gaza Strip now,” says Philippe Lazzarini, the UN’s top commander in Gaza.

Now he and the over 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza are begging for the following: Ceasefire, humanitarian aid and safety.

WORDLESS: Here, UN Gaza chief Philippe Lazzarini (centre) greets children in Gaza during his visit this week. Photo: UN Show more

Uninhabitable Gaza

Gaza’s UN chief Lazzarini was in Gaza this week, for the third time since the violent and increasingly bloody war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October. In Gaza, the war between Israel and Hamas started immediately after the brutal Hamas attack in Israel, in which over 1,200 Israelis were killed and 240 people taken as hostages to Gaza

– Lazzarini was speechless in Gaza in meetings with the civilian population this week. The situation is so cruel that only those who are in the Gaza Strip can describe how bad it is, says Juliette Toma, press manager at UNWRA, to Dagbladet.

– We are 70 days into the war, and every time I go back, I think that it can’t get any worse. But every time I experience more misery, more sorrow and sadness and I feel that Gaza is no longer a habitable place, says Lazzarini.

HUGE DESTRUCTION: 70-80 percent of northern Gaza is completely or partially destroyed, while the figure is around 50 for all of Gaza, according to the Financial Times. The war is now raging on in the south, and more and more buildings are being destroyed, such as here in Rafah. Photo: AFP / NTB Show more

– Hell on earth

On Wednesday, Lazzarini met a disabled man in one of the UN’s many makeshift shelters in Rafah.

– He told me that he did not know what to say to the man when he showed the UN chief a box of beans. It was the only food he had, and was supposed to be for both the husband and his three children, says Toma to Dagbladet.

UN chief Lazzarini describes today’s Gaza as follows: “An endless and ever-worsening tragedy… hell on earth”.

During the 70 days the war has lasted, Lazzarini and the UN have lost 135 of their colleagues. They are confirmed dead.

– Many have been killed together with their families, while they were on the run. That we have lost so many colleagues has never happened in any war or conflict in the UN’s history, says Toma.

INVISIBLE SCARS: Here is UN press chief Juliette Toma in Gaza recently. – The situation is horrible. Women I talked to started crying. They are in shock. Something that is also underreported is that the Palestinians live with the trauma of their ancestors, who have fled before them. There are invisible scars that war inflicts on people’s hearts and minds. They live with loss, trauma and shock, she says. Photo: UN Show more

Exodus

For 70 days, the Gaza Strip has been bombed, around the clock. 1.8 million of the area’s more than 2.2 million people are on the run, in what was already one of the world’s most densely populated areas before the war. The situation is precarious.

– There is an exodus of people. The biggest mass exodus since 1948. In our UN shelters, we house 1.3 million people in 150 rooms, which are overcrowded. We have had to open warehouses and other facilities that are not intended for people, says Toma.

Although most of the UN staff are themselves refugees, they are at work.

– We have thousands of employees at the front. They are on the run, but doing a heroic job. They do what we can. Like giving out what little food we have, but it is far too little. A family of six gets a bottle of water and a can of tuna in a day, says Toma.

She adds: “We are not able to help people as we should”.

Innocents killed

70 days into the war, well over 17,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip. 70 percent of these are women and children, reports show, according to Toma.

– It is the highest number of people killed in any conflict in the 21st century. Higher than both Syria, Yemen and Ukraine… And – the war has only lasted for just over two months, says Toma to Dagbladet.

HUGE GRIEF: On Tuesday morning, AFP photographer Mohammed Abed went to Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah. – I went out as soon as it was light. On the floor lay the Harb family. I knew it was them, since the names were written on the shrouds, says Abed to Dagbladet. Photo: Mohammed Abed / AFP / NTB Show more

AFP’s long-time, experienced photographer in Gaza, Mohammed Abed, knows all too much about just that. On Tuesday morning, as soon as it was light, he went to the Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip. There, the extended Harb family lay on the floor, in white body bags, he tells Dagbladet.

– Everything that is happening now in Gaza is terrible and none of us are safe. But every time I see children being killed, like those in the al-Harb family… Believe me, you get very sad – and very angry, he says and continues:

– When you start the day having to take such pictures, you struggle all day. Everyone in Gaza is having a terrible time now. No place is safe, says Abed.

SHOT: Here, AFP photographer Mohammed Abed lies in hospital, after being shot by an Israeli sniper when he was out photographing in 2018. But Abed does not give up, and is out documenting the ongoing war for AFP. Photo: Afp / Scanpix Show more

For decades, Abed has documented the Gaza wars for AFP. He has never experienced worse.

– Over 60 journalists have been killed. We are around two million people gathered in a very small area in the south of Gaza. When Israel attacks one house, several houses and neighbors are indiscriminately hit – and entire families are killed. The rash. The best thing that can happen to you here in the course of a day is that you are still alive, he says.

Shortly after Mohammed took this photo, he was shot in the leg

– Destroyed on the inside

Israel says that Rafah in southern Gaza is a so-called safe area, which the UN and other organizations deny: No place in Gaza is safe.

– This war kills everyone. Journalists, academics, farmers, women, children, the elderly, the disabled. I am a photographer and cover what happens independently, he says and adds:

– All Palestinians here are completely destroyed on the inside. We are constantly afraid that our loved ones will be killed, and we constantly see death, hunger, injured and destroyed people. So if you can, Norway, help us. We must have a truce now.

The UN’s press director Toma says that there are now so many people in the UN’s provisional shelter that people “are almost sitting and sleeping on top of each other”.

– Most fled in October, when it was warm and they left with summer clothes. Now it has become cold and it has rained several times. But people wear thin clothes and many only have sandals on their feet, she says.

WET AND COLD: Palestinian children try to stay warm from a fire. Most have only the clothes they wear, and have not showered or washed properly for over two months. Photo: Mohammed Abed / AFP / NTB Show more

– Abandoned by the world

People don’t get enough to eat. They have almost no medicine and the sanitary conditions are wretched, so that the danger of epidemics is great.

– The luckiest live close together in our buildings, while the others have nowhere to go. They live outside, in the cold, in the mud – in the rain. Everywhere you look, you meet desperate people. They are starving and terrified, says UN chief Lazzarini and continues:

– In recent days I have met people who have not eaten anything for one, two and even three days. Another thing is that the people of Gaza now believe that their lives are not worth as much as others. They also think that human rights and international humanitarian law do not apply to them, he says.

ON THE RUN: A Palestinian woman brushes her sister’s hair, while they sit and look after the belongings they took with them when they fled the war in the north. This family has nowhere to live. Photo: AFP / NTB Show more

At the UN, Lazzarini said this week that the citizens of Gaza “feeling abandoned of the world and the international community”.

– What shocks me is the lack of empathy and humanity and the dehumanization that is going on. That people can laugh and make fun of what is going on now, he says.

Less attention

Even though the war in Gaza is becoming increasingly bloody, scientists, the UN and humanitarian organizations notice less attention, both in the media and among the general public.

– What is happening in Gaza should enrage everyone. We must stand up and fight for this nightmare to end, says the UN’s Lazzarini.

ON THE RUN AGAIN: An elderly Palestinian woman despairs as bombs fall in the southern city of Rafah. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live outdoors, even though winter and rain have now come to Gaza. Photo: AFP / NTB Show more

He believes the international community must stand up and demand an end to the war in Gaza.

– The longer this war goes on, the greater the losses and the deeper the grief. Now there is no other alternative than to establish a peace process. We must end the longest unresolved conflict in the world. We are talking about 75 years without a solution, and it has hardly been discussed in the last ten years, says Lazzarini and adds:

– Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve a state, peace and stability. It is time that this conflict comes to the top of the priority list.

incomprehensible war: For these four young Palestinian children, the ongoing war must be completely impossible to understand. Photographed here in one of the many tent camps in Rafah, in the very south of the Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP / NTB Show more
2023-12-17 13:33:11
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