UNRWA reports outbreaks of hepatitis A, alarmingly high rates of diarrhoea in Rafah
Thomas White, the Gaza chief of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has said the agency has seen alarmingly high rates of diarrhoea, which can be deadly if there is not enough clean water, in addition to outbreaks of hepatitis A.
“These are the result of a million people jammed into a pretty small area without access to sanitation,” White said, adding that the conditions in Rafah were grim. “Hundreds of thousands of people are digging a hole in the sand adjacent to where they’re living, and that’s where they are defecating,” he said.
As an Israeli invasion of Rafah becomes imminent, White warned of “the reality of having a million people move in the Gaza Strip into areas that are not set up to accommodate them”. “Many of them will have to leave the shelters they have constructed here [in Rafah],” White said. “We will have hundreds of thousands of people living in the open again.”
‘Unprecedented’ levels of food insecurity in Gaza: UN
The deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) says with each passing day, people in Gaza are “simply going hungry” and increasingly lacking any access to food, water and medical services.
“There are unprecedented levels of acute food insecurity, hunger, and near-famine-like conditions in Gaza,” Beth Bechdol said in an interview with FAO staff. Bechdol said the FAO was unable to provide any agricultural production support in Gaza, as most of it had been damaged or destroyed.
Israel blacklists UN special rapporteur over ‘oppression’ remarks: Ministers
The United Nations special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has been refused a visa for months, but now she will be banned from Israel, according to Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Interior Minister Moshe Arbel. In a joint statement, the ministers said the announcement comes following rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s comment a day earlier that the October 7 attacks were a “response to Israel’s oppression”.
“The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression,” she wrote on X, responding to a Le Monde newspaper post reporting on French President Emmanuel Macron honouring the victims of the attack.
UNRWA chief says he has no plans to resign
Philippe Lazzarini says he has “no intention to resign” after Israeli allegations that some of the agency’s staff members participated in Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7. The UN agency provides vital aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Since the accusations were made, several donor countries have suspended funding to UNRWA although Israel has not publicly provided proof to back its claims.
UNRWA has launched an investigation and dismissed staff accused of involvement in the attacks.
UN agency in Gaza says it is becoming difficult to operate in Rafah after funding cuts and visa issues
Just weeks after it warned that it would have to "most likely" halt its work by the end of the month, the main UN relief agency in Gaza says it is becoming difficult to operate in Rafah, where 1.5 million civilians are seeking refuge.
Addressing EU development ministers in Brussels on Monday, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said in addition to funding cuts, other restrictions are also hindering operations, including the “local bank" freezing UNRWA's account and visas for staff members only being granted on a month-to-month basis instead of once per year.
Lazzarini also said the situation on the ground was becoming more complex, describing "a deep sense of panic and anxiety regarding the prospect of an unfolding military operation" in Rafah. He also outlined the agency had to operate without police support for the first time on Sunday, as some local police are reluctant to be seen with the agency.
