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UN humanitarian agency laments ‘one year of unimaginable suffering’
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has called on world leaders to bring an end to the “unimaginable suffering” and the “unrelenting tragedy” in the Middle East on the anniversary of Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel.
It noted that Hamas’s attacks killed some 1,200 people in Israel, while Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 41,600 Palestinians and displaced nearly the entire population of the enclave.
Scores of Israeli captives remain in Gaza while thousands of Palestinians have been arbitrarily detained and reportedly subjected to torture, it said. Civilians in Gaza, meanwhile, face extreme deprivation, with limited or no access to healthcare, food, electricity or humanitarian aid, it noted.
“No statistics or words can fully convey the extent of the physical, mental and societal devastation that has taken place,” said Joyce Msuya, the acting undersecretary-general and emergency relief coordinator.
“But we know what must happen: The hostages must be released and treated humanely. Civilians must be protected and their essential needs met. Palestinians arbitrarily detained must be released. Humanitarian workers must be safeguarded and their work facilitated. Perpetrators must be held accountable for any serious violations of international humanitarian law. And the assault on Gaza must stop,” she said.
Women mourn Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, October 6
Palestinian women, children systematically dehumanised, says UN expert
Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur for violence against women and girls, says that over the past year, women in Gaza have gone through “the most bloody chapter” of inhumane Israeli mistreatment.
This includes “collective punishment, incarceration, sexual violence and deliberate extermination”, she told Al Jazeera.
“Women and children have been systematically dehumanised – where children are seen as not innocent and where women’s wombs are seen as something that has to be attacked and exterminated,” Alsalem said.
This is being carried out through large-scale violence, attacks on health infrastructure amounting to reproductive violence, “and forcing women to leave their babies behind” when Israeli troops forcefully evacuate hospitals, in addition to starving lactating mothers.
