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UN aid workers on Thursday called for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and warned that the violence is impeding with their ability to help the affected in the Palestinian enclave.
Anne-Claire Dufay, the chief of UNICEF’s field office in Gaza, said that the renewed hostilities threatened the delivery of aid to several hundreds of thousands of children.
“We urgently need a few hours of ceasefire per day so we can provide support to affected children and families”, she said. Work taken on to repair damage to infrastructure during the current Israeli aggression in Gaza has been stopped temporarily since the hostilities resumed, she added. She also said that UNICEF teams had their movement restricted.
“In the current context we should at least have a few hours a day for a humanitarian ceasefire corridor”, she said.
According to Ramesh Rajasingham, the head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza and the West Bank, there is an “urgent need for an immediate ceasefire”.
According to UN statistics, over 435,000 people have been displaced by the Israeli aggression in Gaza since the truce talks collapsed and the conflict resumed. The UN warned that the number is expected to rise as 23,000 people are already seeking shelter at the 82 UN and 7 government schools in the Palestinian enclave.
Rajasingham said that constant movement between shelters and homes was traumatic, especially for children.
“It is extremely difficult for us to do our job, to save lives, protect and assist those in need, including for medical staff to save lives, of aid workers to meet needs, for specialists to clear unexploded munitions, or for technicians to repair damage to infrastructure vital to the population.In the long run, a permanent halt in violence stemming from a durable ceasefire is crucial to mitigating the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip”, he said.
