War in the Middle East - Aid organizations sound the alarm: "Horror" in the Gaza Strip
"Horror" and "unbearable human suffering": Aid organizations warn of dramatic effects on the civilian population in the coastal area in view of the expansion of Israeli ground operations to the entire Gaza Strip. They also criticize the desolate humanitarian situation there. Nobody feels safe when bombs are falling every ten minutes, said James Elder, spokesman for the UN children's charity Unicef, to the British BBC. He described the situation as "horror".
"When I see one child after another being wheeled in, parents with terrible war injuries screaming on stretchers - they are not safe in hospitals or in shelters," said Elder. For the people in the south of the Gaza Strip, the danger of attacks is compounded by the fact that they are already exhausted from fleeing from the north.
"The extent of human suffering is unbearable"
The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric, lamented that no adequate humanitarian aid is currently possible. "The extent of human suffering is unbearable," she said during a visit to the embattled Palestinian territory. It was also unacceptable that there were no safe havens for the population.
Photos showed people camping in makeshift tent camps and in the open among rubble and destroyed buildings.
Save the Children warned of the enormous risks posed to children by the fighting in the south of the Gaza Strip. Following new calls from Israel's military to evacuate areas, there is no longer a single safe place for children in Gaza, said Country Director Jason Lee. "For the civilian population in Gaza, an unprecedented humanitarian crisis is finally turning into a catastrophe."
Hamas authority: Death toll in Gaza rises to nearly 15,900
Due to the high number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as a result of the massive attacks, international criticism of the Israeli army's actions is growing. The military in turn accuses the Islamist Hamas of carrying out attacks from residential areas and hospitals and abusing civilians as human shields.
According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has risen to 15,899 since the start of the war. Around 42,000 people have been injured, a spokesman said on Monday. Thousands of people are still missing. On Sunday, the authorities had still spoken of more than 15,500 dead.
The number of victims cannot be independently verified at present, but the United Nations and other observers point out that the authority's figures have proved to be generally credible in the past.
According to the figures, this is by far the highest number of Palestinians killed during a war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
UNRWA: almost 1.9 million internally displaced persons in the Gaza Strip
According to the Palestinian relief organization UNRWA, almost 1.9 million people are on the run. This is more than 80 percent of the population, UNRWA announced. Almost one million internally displaced persons are in 99 facilities in the center of the coastal area as well as in Chan Junis and Rafah in the south. More than 2.2 million people live in the Gaza Strip - in an area only slightly larger than that of the city of Munich.
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Source: www.stern.de
