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Aid brought into Gaza by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) during the recent ceasefire will last for less than two weeks as supplies have been cut off completely since violence resumed, the agency’s director has told The National.
“The supply we stockpiled has been depleted to the extent that now we cannot supply bakeries any more,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in the Turkish resort city. “We have ended the last round of food distribution and what's still remaining is some food for maybe one week, 10 days, for some popular kitchens.”
Humanitarians are once again recording horrific stories of killings of Gazans since the ceasefire collapsed. With Israel preventing aid deliveries, increasing levels of hunger and the spread of infectious disease are being observed as people are forced to live in dire conditions without basics such as adequate shelter and water supplies. All of that will lead to more people dying, Mr Lazzarini said.
“We have started to have stories of people telling us that, ‘please, we want to die. We want to die with our families because it has become absolutely unbearable.’”
More than 1,500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed, the strip's health authorities have said. The overall number killed since the war began, prompted by Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has surpassed 50,900.
The increase in what Israel has described as “military zones” in the Palestinian enclave has uprooted residents time and time again, and squeezed them into increasingly small areas in search of elusive safety.
Gazans have been moved around “like pinballs” under constant displacement orders by Israeli authorities, Mr Lazzarini said. “We have seen also that the areas where Palestinians are allowed to go have shrunk because of the military zone,” he added.
On Saturday, Israel’s military said it completed the takeover of a stretch of land that separates the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis in the south of the strip, surrounding the former and turning it into a “buffer zone”.
The Israeli-controlled route has raised fears among Palestinians of a long-term occupation of Gaza and division of the territory in a way that gives Israel control over the movement of Palestinians and the distribution of aid.
The ceasefire, which came into force in January but collapsed last month, had allowed aid workers to bring in 600 to 800 lorries of supplies a day. The brief pause in hostilities proved that relief could reach people in need if there was political will, the UNRWA chief said.
“During the period of the ceasefire, we brought more supply to Gaza than during the 15 months preceding the ceasefire,” Mr Lazzarini said. “That was an indication that if there is a will, we can make it happen.”
UNRWA commissioner general
Since the ceasefire broke down in March, Gaza has been “completely sealed off”, he said, in an attempt by Israel to pressure Hamas and turn the population against the militant group.
“The humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip is currently weaponised,” Mr Lazzarini said.
International humanitarian law requires that an occupying power supply aid to the population. The global community, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN, sees Israel as the occupying power in Gaza, although the country refutes this.
UN member states need to add action to words of condemnation to change the status quo, Mr Lazzarini said.
“Everybody has realised the scope of the suffering, and the scope or the severity of the violation, but they come at no price,” he said. “There is no accountability. There is total impunity prevailing. And as long as this will be the case, I don't see how things can be reversed.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last week repeated his call for a renewed ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the release of all hostages still being held by militant groups inside the enclave.
Beyond Gaza, recent Israeli legislation that essentially prevents UNRWA from working in territory under the country's control has made delivery of services, such as education and health care, increasingly difficult.
Last week, Israeli security forces raided six UNRWA-run schools in occupied East Jerusalem, ordering them to shut within 30 days. The closures would mean 800 pupils being forced to abruptly halt learning before the end of their school year. It remains unclear where else they could attend classes.
“That's a question we should ask the [Israeli Jerusalem] municipality or to those who have issued this order,” Mr Lazzarini said. “I am not aware of any alternative that they are offering. Such an order can only disrupt the education of these children, who are already members of one of the most vulnerable and destitute, underprivileged communities in East Jerusalem.”
UNRWA does not work exclusively in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. It also provides for Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, where it serves about 430,000 people in 12 refugee camps.
Mr Lazzarini said the agency’s work in Syria had not changed since the fall of the regime of former Syrian president Bashar Al Assad in December and the rise of new authorities led by transitional President Ahmad Al Shara, also head of former Al Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir Al Sham.
“I would say the impact on our ability to operate and on our services has been minimal,” Mr Lazzarini said.
As Syria forms new state institutions across communities atomised over more than 13 years of conflict, and its new authorities come under international pressure to ensure representation of the country’s rich ethnic and religious diversity, Mr Lazzarini said its Palestinian population should also be included.
“You have an important minority called the Palestinian refugees,” he said. “We will have to make sure that they remain socio-economically included in Syria.”
