NEW YORK, (PIC)
The UN has warned about “deadly” living conditions in northern Gaza, saying Palestinians are starving while the world keeps watching.
“For the past month, north Gaza has been under a near-total brutal siege,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said during a news conference, conveying acting under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Joyce Msuya’s message.
“Israeli military ground operations have left Palestinians without the essentials to survive, forced them to flee for safety multiple times, and cut off their escape and supply routes,” according to the message by Msuya.
Noting that “living conditions are deadly” in northern Gaza, she stressed that “civilians are starving while the world watches on. These atrocities must stop.”
Dujarric also pointed out that 1,000 Palestinian homes had been destroyed in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem this year.
The destruction has displaced more than 1,100 Palestinians, with 40 percent from east Jerusalem.
In a related context, the UN says replacing its Palestinian relief agency UNRWA in Gaza and the West Bank is not its responsibility, signaling it was Israel’s problem, according to a letter excerpt seen by Reuters.
The UN formally responded in a letter to Israel’s decision to cut ties with UNRWA, a move that the refugee agency has said leaves its operations in Gaza and the West Bank at risk of collapse.
Under a new law, Israel told the UN on Sunday it was ending a 1967 cooperation agreement with UNRWA that covered its protection, movement and diplomatic immunity. The law will also ban UNRWA’s operations in Israel from late January.
“I would note, as a general point, that it is not our responsibility to replace UNRWA, nor do we have the capacity to do so,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres’ chef de cabinet, Courtenay Rattray, wrote to a senior Israeli foreign affairs official late on Tuesday.
The mention of responsibility is a veiled reference to Israel’s obligations as an occupying power.
The UN views Gaza and the West Bank as Israeli-occupied territories. International humanitarian law requires an occupying power to provide relief programs for people in need and to supply them with all the means at its disposal.
