The head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency said yesterday that its staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.
UNRWA said it had received dozens of emergency messages from its staff describing grave conditions and exhaustion in the enclave, where Israel has been fighting a war against Hamas since October, 2023.
“No one is spared: caretakers in Gaza are also in need of care. Doctors, nurses, journalists and humanitarians are hungry,” UNRWA commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement, shared by his spokesperson at a Press briefing in Geneva.
“Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties: reporting atrocities or alleviating some of the suffering.”
Lazzarini also criticised a US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has been supplying aid since late May, when Israel, which controls supplies into Gaza, lifted an 11-week blockade.
“The so called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill,” Lazzarini said.
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies and largely bypasses a UN-led system.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the end of May, according to UNRWA estimates, Lazzarini said.
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