‘Gaza is becoming unviable’: UNRWA official

What started early in the war as a humanitarian crisis, Juliette Touma tells Al Jazeera, has now evolved into a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

The director of communications for the UN’s Palestinian relief agency said that UNRWA is currently sheltering nine times as many people in Gaza as it had planned for.

“1.3 million people are now in overcrowded UNRWA shelters that are themselves unprotected,” she said, adding that disease and hunger are spreading in its facilities.

“People don’t have enough food, they are getting hungry. Many of them are getting very understandably frustrated” she continued.

Touma said that the UN agency has seen break-ins at its aid warehouses in Gaza, and that its aid trucks have been stopped in the street by hungry Palestinians.

“People literally started taking food from those trucks and eating it then and there,” she said. “That shows that if the war continues, Gaza is going to sink further into the abyss.”

Her organisation and many others have said that only a ceasefire can begin to improve the situation in Gaza, but “quite often, our calls have gone unheeded,” she said.

Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe
Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/
Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/
Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile

#UNRWA #Gaza #GazaShortages #FuelForGaza #GazaFuelCrisis #GazaHumanitarianAid #Egypt #RafahCrossing #Israel #GazaWar #IsraelHamasWar #IsraelGazaWar #GazaHumanitarianCrisis #UnitedNations