‘Escalating’ Israeli attacks on hospitals, homes and destruction of ‘entire neighbourhoods’ in Gaza: UN
An estimated 81 percent of Gaza’s entire territory is now within Israeli-declared “militarised zones” or is subject to forced displacement orders by Israeli forces, according to the latest UN situation report on the war-torn territory.
The UN human rights office has also identified an “escalating pattern” of Israeli strikes on crowded hospitals, residential buildings and tent shelters in Gaza, as well as the “methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods” in the territory.
According to the situation report, the intensified Israeli assault on Gaza – since the recent launch of the “Gideon’s Chariots” military campaign – has been carried out with “little, if any, care … to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza”.
“The use of weapons with wide area effects suggest deliberate, indiscriminate attack,” according to the UN human rights office.
A view from the ruins of a mosque shows tents used by Palestinians forcibly displaced by the Israeli military offensive, near Gaza’s seaport, in Gaza City, on Thursday
Gaza is a ‘nightmare’ and aid needs to be scaled up to match magnitude of crisis: IFRC
Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), spoke to Al Jazeera earlier about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Here’s more of what Della Longa said:
- Colleagues are telling us that the situation is simply a nightmare for people. Of course, the news of aid re-entering the Gaza Strip is positive news. But it is really less than a drop in the ocean. Earlier today, here in Geneva, we had the president of the Palestine Red Crescent, and he was telling us that even if some trucks have entered, this doesn’t mean that aid was delivered to the people. So, until now, people did not get, basically, anything.
- Still, we need to have a humanitarian operation at scale, which means that if before the conflict started, we are talking about 500 or 600 trucks a day, now, probably we need a number that is double that because the needs remain. People are starving, there are issues to find clean water and to get aid support. It’s just a nightmare that is continuing to worsen day after day.
- People are desperate. We need much more humanitarian aid. We need food. We need water. We need commercial items. We need medicines. We need formula for babies. But at scale.
Hundreds of displaced Palestinians jostle to get bags of bread distributed through a bakery window in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza after limited flour supplies entered the Strip on Thursday
Israeli attacks push forcibly displaced Palestinians into ‘death trap’ evacuation zone
The majority of the people evacuated from the northern part of the Strip are being pushed into displacement sites on the coastal road on the western side of Gaza City, particularly in the sea port area. And from the eastern part of Khan Younis all the way to al-Mawasi evacuation zone that has not been largely safe for displaced people.
We’ve seen many people killed inside this particular evacuation zone that has evolved in the past months into more of a death trap for many displaced families from different parts of the Gaza Strip.
Also, the Israeli military did not stop its air strikes.
We are talking about an air strike in the northern part of the Strip where major residential blocks have been flattened and turned into fields of rubble, as well as three people reported killed in the city of Deir el-Balah as a drone strike targeted a residential flat in the heart of the city.
Palestinians inspect the damaged after an Israeli air strike targeted tents sheltering displaced civilians in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, southern Gaza on April 17
