‘We are witnessing what is a tragic ongoing genocide’
We’ve spoken to Laila Baker, the regional director for Arab states at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), about the situation Palestinians are finding themselves in after 22 months of war, in addition to decades of systematic population abuse under Israeli occupation.
Here’s what she said:
“We are witnessing what is a tragic ongoing genocide that continues to devastate the lives of Palestinians in Gaza, but also elsewhere in the region, including the West Bank.
“This is not a failure of capacity; it is essentially a failure of will, access and accountability of the international community in allowing the United Nations to do its job, to be able to provide for the people on humanitarian assistance.
“And more importantly, that the Israeli government as an occupying force including since 1967 in Gaza has the primary responsibility for protecting and providing for the people who are under its occupation.
“To say that there’s been a gross failure of and a breach of that covenant is to underestimate the situation on the ground.
“At UNFPA, we are exceedingly worried about the entire community of two million Palestinians who have been trapped, assaulted, displaced and starved under the Israeli assault since October of 2023.”
‘Inconceivable anyone with a beating human heart can stand by and watch this’
We have some more lines from our interview with Laila Baker, the regional director for Arab states at the United Nations Population Fund.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Cairo, she highlighted how women in particular have been bearing the brunt of Israel’s war on Gaza, citing the continuous displacement, the breaking down of protection mechanisms and the destruction of the social fabric, as well as women’s inability to have any sort of confidentiality, privacy and personal hygiene.
“It baffles me how that will not have a long-lasting impact on the confidence, on the fertility and on the mental wellbeing of the women in Gaza,” Baker told Al Jazeera.
“They are not only the providers; they are not only the protectors of themselves and trying to survive as individual human beings – but for many women and girls in Gaza, they are the primary caretakers of their family,” she said.
“Thus, they have to go and fend for food and fight off being a … deliberate target while they are trying to get the most meagre means for survival,” Baker continued.
“I find it almost inconceivable that anyone with a beating human heart can stand by and watch this – it must come to a grinding halt.”
