Ross Smith, director of preparation and response to emergency, Ross, informed journalists in New York following a fatal incident on Sunday during which dozens of civilians were killed and injured while waiting to access food as Wfp Conveyed entered the north of Gaza.
“Yesterday’s incident is one of the largest tragedies we have seen for our operations in Gaza and elsewhere while we are trying to work,” he said, speaking of Rome.
“And it’s completely preventable, and it’s an absolute tragedy,” he added.
Famine and malnutrition conditions
The Gaza population amounts to around 2.1 million and earlier this year, food security experts warned that one in five people faced famine.
Smith said that WFP assessments show that a quarter of the population is facing famine conditions. Nearly 100,000 women and children suffer from acute serious malnutrition and need treatment as soon as possible.
Stressing reports, he said that “people are dying for lack of humanitarian aid every day, and we see it degenerating day by day.”
He stressed that food aid and humanitarian aid more widely, are “the only solution for the moment” for Gaza.
Minimum operating conditions
Smith said that humanitarian workers have a set of minimum operating conditions that must be in place so that they can work effectively.
These include points in Gaza, “appropriate routing” inside the enclave so that the teams can move independently and the entrance to more than 100 aid trucks per day.
“We must also have armed players near the food distribution points, near our convoys and close to the movement of these convoys from one place to another,” he continued, while stressing the need to reach people where they are and not in otherwise predetermined places.
“And I would especially say that we have had agreements in principle on these things, but we did not have any membership of them in practice in Gaza herself. And this is really where the rupture is, and this is where we see incidents as (yesterday) take place, “he said.
Ceasefire now
Mr. Smith also underlined the critical need for a ceasefire “so that we can move effectively”.
In response to the question of a journalist, he said that WFP had moved more than 200 assistance trucks per day in Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year. Since mid-May, he has been able to move less than 10% of what is necessary.
He said that the United Nations agency has sufficiently pre-positioned stocks outside Gaza to provide the whole population for two months “if we can get a ceasefire and if we can move. »»
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
