GAZA, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said that 1.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are currently suffering from dangerous or multiple levels of malnutrition and food insecurity, as the Israeli army continues to block the entry of essential humanitarian supplies needed for the winter season.
“The current storm is having catastrophic and direct effects on the lives of displaced people,” Abu Hasna said in remarks published by Al Jazeera Net on Monday.
“The storm ripped up thousands of tents, with rainwater and sewage flooding vast residential areas,” Abu Hasna explained, noting that most tents, cobbled together from plastic sheets and scraps of cloth, offer no real protection for displaced families.
“Even genuine tents, worn out from repeated displacements, have become useless and unable to withstand the storms and heavy rains battering the Strip,” Abu Hasna added.
The spokesman affirmed that Gazans perceive the war as ongoing, merely manifesting in new forms and guises.
“The ongoing deterioration of humanitarian conditions, the rising number of patients, and the prevention of hundreds of types of food and non‑food items, spare parts for sewage and water stations, medical equipment, and medicines all constitute different forms of ongoing war against the civilian population,” the spokesman said.
Abu Hasna accused Israel of blocking UNRWA from bringing in 6,000 trucks carrying hundreds of thousands of tents, which were purchased by the agency for hundreds of millions of dollars and Gazans desperately need now.
He added that these shipments also contain hundreds of thousands of blankets and winter clothes, as well as food supplies sufficient for the Gaza Strip for three months, but all these truckloads remain blocked at the entrances of the Strip.
