UN foresees 'hellish scenario' in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS/GAZA — A UN official has warned that "an even more hellish scenario" looms in the Gaza Strip where humanitarian aid simply grinds to a halt, as Israeli forces pressed ahead with their air and ground bombardment.

"The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist," Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said on Monday.

Since the end of a seven-day truce on Friday, Israeli forces have pushed into southern Gaza, "forcing tens of thousands ... into increasingly compressed spaces, desperate to find food, water, shelter and safety", Hastings said.

"Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go. If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond," she said in a statement.

Hastings rejected the idea of "safe zones" urged upon Israel by the United States, where people are still unable to move about freely.

"These zones cannot be safe nor humanitarian when unilaterally declared," she said.

"What we see today are shelters with no capacity, a health system on its knees, a lack of clean drinking water, no proper sanitation and poor nutrition for people already mentally and physically exhausted: a textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster."

Further complicating aid deliveries, two major roads in Gaza have been declared off-limits to UN teams and trucks, Hastings said.

Hastings has her base in Jerusalem, but Israel informed the United Nations last week that it would not renew her visa, accusing her of not being "impartial".

In time of need

China had recently shipped eight trucks of aid supplies, including cans, biscuits, milk, honey, and drinking water to Egypt's Arish city, which will then be transferred to the coastal enclave via the Rafah border crossing, said Chinese Ambassador to Egypt Liao Liqiang in Cairo on Sunday.

He said China has actively played its role as a responsible major country since the eruption of the latest Israel-Palestine conflict, and had previously announced it would provide food, medicine and other urgent humanitarian assistance to the enclave.

Diab al-Louh, Palestine's ambassador to Egypt, extended the sincere thanks and respect of the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian people to China for kindly providing help in times of need when the Gazan people are mired in a humanitarian disaster.

On Tuesday, residents and journalists on the ground in Gaza said the intense Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza included areas where Israel had told people to seek shelter.

Israel largely captured the northern half of Gaza in November, and has swiftly pushed deep into the southern half since the weeklong truce collapsed on Friday. The Gazan health ministry said about 900 Palestinians have been killed since Friday.

Hamas ally Islamic Jihad's armed wing said its fighters engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli soldiers north and east of Khan Younis, Gaza's main southern city.

Israeli tanks have driven into Gaza across the border and cut off the main north-south route, residents said. The Israeli military said the central road out of Khan Younis to the north "constitutes a battlefield" and is now shut.

In eight weeks of conflict, the Gazan health ministry said at least 15,899 Palestinians have been killed and 70 percent of them were women or children under the age of 18.

Agencies - Xinhua