Whole of northern Gaza at risk of death: UN’s top humanitarian official

Joyce Msuya warns Israel’s ‘blatant disregard for basic humanity and laws of war’ likely to mean hundreds of thousands more deaths

Joyce Msuya, the UN’s highest humanitarian official, warned yesterday that the all the approximately 400,000 people still living in northern Gaza is at risk of dying and called for an immediate halt to Israel’s war crimes and inhumanity in the besieged and cut-off territory.

Msuya, the UN’s acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, published a statement condemning Israel’s ‘blatant disregard for basic humanity and the laws of war’:

What Israeli forces are doing in besieged North Gaza cannot be allowed to continue.
Hospitals have been hit and health workers have been detained. Shelters have been emptied and
burned down. First responders have been prevented from rescuing people from under the
rubble.

Families have been separated and men and boys are being taken away by the truckload. Hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed. Tens of thousands have been forced to flee yet again.

The entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying. Such blatant disregard for basic humanity and for the laws of war must stop.

Israel has murdered as many as 200,000 civilians in Gaza in the past year, mostly women and children, with many more maimed and the whole population enduring famine and disease because of Israel’s illegal blockade of food, fuel, medicines and other essentials for life. Since the beginning of October, the whole of northern Gaza has been cut off from the rest of the ‘strip’ and no food at all has been allowed to enter, while medical charities and other aid organisations have been banned and the area’s handful of remaining journalists declared terrorists and put on a kill list, as Israel enacts the so-called ‘generals’ plan’ for the extermination or removal of the whole population.

SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:

Thanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.