A senior UN official has warned that the deteriorating situation in Gaza is the worst humanitarian crisis he has ever seen in his 50-year career.
Talking to Sky News Yalda HakimMartin Griffiths said this is because “people can't escape. They're trapped, they can't escape Gaza“.
“I think this is the worst [crisis] In my 50 years of experience.”
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said that what happened was worse than the “horrific scenes” he witnessed during the civil war in Syria a few years ago, and worse than the “atrocities” represented by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s.
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He compared the situation in Gaza to the current war in Gaza Sudan Where “the suffering is likely to be in a similar landscape” – but despite eight million people being displaced, one and a half million people have left the country in northeastern Africa.
“Now I'm not saying this is great, but it is a choice they can make. This is not a choice they can make in Gaza,” he said.
Since the war began on October 7 last year when agitation She launched her deadly attack on IsraelAbout 80% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have been expelled from their homes due to Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Large areas in northern Gaza were completely destroyed, the majority of the population moved to the south, and the humanitarian crisis caused a quarter of the population to suffer from famine.
Palestinian children wait to receive food prepared by a charity kitchen amid a severe food shortage in Rafah. Photo: Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas militants are hiding in Rafah, on the southern Egyptian border, and they are also… They are thinking of launching a ground attack on the city.
In Rafah, 1.4 million people – more than half of the area's population – are crowded into camps and apartments and shelters in the city are crowded.
Mr Griffiths warned that if there was such a ground operation by Israeli forces, “please do not think that a humanitarian operation can succeed in helping people in the way we would like. It will not happen.”
He added: “With more than a million people in this enclave, around Rafah, without any other option to go south… we are very concerned about the lack of operating conditions for any kind of humanitarian assistance.” practical.”
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“The disease spreads quickly”
He also said: “We have major access problems. We have increasing episodes of civil unrest, which impedes our access and attacks our drivers.
“We are facing great difficulty getting aid into Gaza now. If the Rafah crossing is attacked and if the Rafah crossing is closed, it will be even more difficult.”
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A young girl describes life in Rafah as she prepares for an attack
Speaking about the risks facing the entire region, Mr Griffiths said: “We do not believe there is a safe place for people to move inside Gaza. So the idea of evacuating them to a safe place, we think is delusional.”
Hamas killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in its cross-border raid on Israel on October 7, and took about 250 others hostage. In retaliatory Israeli raids, at least 28,576 Palestinians, most of them women and children, were killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Griffiths has negotiated with terrorists during his long career, and said Israel needs to negotiate an end to the war with Hamas, despite Netanyahu's pledge to destroy the militant group.
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An analyst watches a video of the Hamas leader's tunnel
“I think it is very difficult to expel these groups without reaching a negotiated solution that includes their aspirations,” the UN official said.
“I can't think of an offhand example of a place where victory was achieved through war against an entrenched group, terrorist or otherwise.”
Mr Griffiths added: “What I have found is that dialogue is a better tool, even with terrorists, to engage and resolve or resolve differences.”
He also praised Sky News for this Report on the civil war in SudanWhere rival military forces fight each other.
He said: “I'm really happy that you covered Sudan, and I think it's perfect and wonderful that you did, because with international attention comes help for our operations, and with help comes help for the people of Sudan.
“Sudan is a place where the lack of knowledge deprives us of a true sense of the scale of suffering, but the numbers tell the story.”
He said that 25 million people need humanitarian aid in Sudan, eight million people have left their homes, and there are 10,000 cases of cholera.
“Hardly any diplomacy. We need access.”
“So we've been trying hard to bring the two armies together, again, to co-plan our access planning, convoy routes and so on,” he added.
