GAZA, (PIC)
The UN relief and works agency (UNRWA) has warned that already low levels of aid trickling into Gaza had dwindled further, with the situation in the north of the territory described as “catastrophic.”
Asked about whether there were signs the situation had improved, Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA emergencies officer, said “aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months.”
Speaking to a Geneva media briefing via video link from Gaza, Wateridge said that “the average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip… that is for 2.2 million people.”
“Children are dying. People are dying every day,” she said, stressing that “people here need everything.”
The situation is at its worst in northern Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment over the weekend said that famine was imminent.
No food was permitted to enter besieged northern Gaza for an entire month, Wateridge said, adding that UN requests to access the area have been repeatedly denied.
Wateridge said that testimonies from the north painted “an endlessly horrific” picture that was becoming “more critical” by the hour.
“Hospitals have been bombed; the doctors inform us that they have run out of blood supplies; they have run out of medicine; there are bodies in the streets.”
