By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) – The president of the Red Cross described the humanitarian situation in Gaza on Friday as “hell on earth” and warned that its field hospital will run out of supplies within two weeks.
“We are now finding ourselves in a situation that I have to describe as hell on earth …People don’t have access to water, electricity, food, in many parts,” Mirjana Spoljaric told Reuters at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.
No new humanitarian supplies have entered the Palestinian enclave since Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks on March 2, as talks stalled on the next stage of a now broken truce. Israel resumed its military assault on March 18.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said 25,000 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the 42 days of the ceasefire and that Hamas had used the aid to rebuild its war machine, an allegation which the group has denied.
Spoljaric said supplies were running critically low.
“For six weeks, nothing has come in, so we will, in a couple of weeks’ time, run out of supplies that we need to keep the hospital going,” she said.
The World Health Organization said supplies of antibiotics and blood bags were dwindling fast. Twenty-two out of 36 hospitals in the enclave are only minimally functional, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva via video link in Jerusalem.
The Red Cross president also raised concern about the safety of humanitarian operations.
“It is extremely dangerous for the population to move, but it’s especially also dangerous for us to operate,” Spoljaric said.
In March, the bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers, including eight members of the Palestinian Red Crescent, were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza.
The U.N. and Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them.
The Israeli military said on Monday that an initial investigation showed that the incident occurred “due to a sense of threat” after it said it had identified six Hamas militants in the vicinity.
Spoljaric called for an immediate ceasefire in order to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas and to address grave humanitarian issues in Gaza.
Israel began its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages on a raid into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed and much of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Comments