UN Warns of Worsening Humanitarian Situation in Gaza
GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The United Nations has warned that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip besieged by the Zionist regime and Egypt is deteriorating due to a decade-long blockade, calling for an "immediate” end to the crisis.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an address to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People that approximately two million Palestinians in Gaza "remain mired in increasing poverty and unemployment, with no access to adequate health, education, water and electricity,” leaving young people with "little prospect of a better future.”
Guterres further called on the Tel Aviv regime to "lift restrictions on the movement of people and goods, which also hamper the efforts of the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, without naturally jeopardizing legitimate security concerns.”
The secretary general commended the UN agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA for its "critical work" in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and across the region, urging the international community to "significantly” increase efforts to revitalize Gaza’s economy.
He further slammed as "illegal” the Zionist regime’s continued land expropriation and settlement expansion policies in the occupied territories, saying the settlement activities "deepen the sense of mistrust and undermine” the so-called two-state solution.
More than half a million Zionists live in over 120 settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank in 1967. Much of the international community considers the settler units illegal and subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied land.
The UN has warned that the blockade would render it uninhabitable by 2020, but on Wednesday the UN agency said conditions "are worse” than when they made that prediction.
According to the UN development agency (UNCTAD) the decade-long siege and three Israeli-imposed wars have "eviscerated” Gaza’s productive capacity.
Palestinian children look through a hole in a sheet metal fence outside their home in a poor neighborhood in Gaza City on August 8, 2017.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an address to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People that approximately two million Palestinians in Gaza "remain mired in increasing poverty and unemployment, with no access to adequate health, education, water and electricity,” leaving young people with "little prospect of a better future.”
Guterres further called on the Tel Aviv regime to "lift restrictions on the movement of people and goods, which also hamper the efforts of the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, without naturally jeopardizing legitimate security concerns.”
The secretary general commended the UN agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA for its "critical work" in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and across the region, urging the international community to "significantly” increase efforts to revitalize Gaza’s economy.
He further slammed as "illegal” the Zionist regime’s continued land expropriation and settlement expansion policies in the occupied territories, saying the settlement activities "deepen the sense of mistrust and undermine” the so-called two-state solution.
More than half a million Zionists live in over 120 settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank in 1967. Much of the international community considers the settler units illegal and subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied land.
The UN has warned that the blockade would render it uninhabitable by 2020, but on Wednesday the UN agency said conditions "are worse” than when they made that prediction.
According to the UN development agency (UNCTAD) the decade-long siege and three Israeli-imposed wars have "eviscerated” Gaza’s productive capacity.
Palestinian children look through a hole in a sheet metal fence outside their home in a poor neighborhood in Gaza City on August 8, 2017.