Israel bombs WHO facilities in Gaza as global outcry grows
The airstrikes, which struck the UN global health agency's facilities in Deir al-Balah – the focus of a recent offensive by the Israeli military – came as Israel cancelled the work visa of Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) inside Gaza and the most senior UN aid official in the coastal strip.
Hours after a hard-hitting joint statement on Monday by 27 western countries including the UK, France, Australia and Canada harshly criticising Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid and calling for an immediate end to the war, the UN's secretary general, António Guterres, warned that the 'last lifelines keeping people alive [in Gaza] are collapsing', adding that humanitarian efforts were 'being impeded, undermined and endangered'.
He said he 'deplored the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition' as health officials in Gaza reported a further 15 deaths from malnutrition in the previous 24 hours, including four children.
The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, on Tuesday amplified that message in an interview with the BBC, describing himself as 'appalled [and] sickened' by what was happening in Gaza.
'These are not words that are usually used by a foreign secretary who is attempting to be diplomatic,' Lammy said. 'But when you see innocent children holding out their hand for food, and you see them shot and killed in the way that we have seen in the last few days, of course Britain must call it out.'
The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, also said on Tuesday that she had told the Israeli foreign minister that Israel's military 'must stop' killing civilians at aid distribution points in Gaza.
'The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible. I spoke again with Gideon Saar to recall our understanding on aid flow and made clear that IDF [Israel Defense Forces] must stop killing people at distribution points,' she wrote on X.
Graphically underlining the scale of the intensifying humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the head of the UN's main agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, said on Tuesday that more than 1,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in recent weeks as they sought food aid, describing Gaza as a 'hell on earth'.
Philippe Lazzarini said Unrwa's own staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty due to hunger and exhaustion as Israel limits access to life-saving humanitarian aid, and that many were surviving on a single small meal a day.
'Caretakers, including Unrwa colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now, doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them Unrwa staff, are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,' he said in a statement at a press briefing in Geneva.
The UN's World Food Programme on Monday said its assessments show a quarter of the population of Gaza is is facing 'famine-like' conditions and almost 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
Separately, the Roman Catholic church's most senior cleric in the Holy Land said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was 'morally unacceptable', after visiting the war-torn Palestinian territory.
'We have seen men holding out in the sun for hours in the hope of a simple meal,' Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told a news conference: 'It's morally unacceptable and unjustified.'
Despite the high-profile criticism in recent days, aid agencies have criticised the lack of meaningful action by the governments who signed the joint statement, including the UK, against Israel.
Kristyan Benedict of Amnesty International UK warned that the British government's 'failure to take robust measures to prevent genocide is no accident', adding that 'as a state party to the genocide convention, the UK has a legal duty to prevent and punish genocide – a duty it is failing miserably to uphold'.
The growing international furore came as Israeli troops have pushed into Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, a city where a number of international aid organisations are based, in what appeared to be the latest effort to carve up the Palestinian territory with military corridors.
Deir al-Balah is the only Gaza city that has not seen major ground operations or suffered widespread devastation in 21 months of war, leading to speculation that the Hamas militant group holds large numbers of hostages there.
Israel says the seizure of territory in Gaza is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages, but it is a major point of contention in ongoing ceasefire talks. However, the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza comes amid fears that its ultimate aim is to expel large parts of its population of more than 2 million by making the territory uninhabitable.
Israel justified its cancellation of Whittall's visa on the alleged grounds of anti-Israel bias. In a statement, however, Ocha defended its local head's strong remarks when describing what he was seeing in Gaza.
'Speaking about conditions we see on the ground is a core element of Ocha's mandate,' the agency said. 'Attempts to silence us are not new, but threats of reduced access to the civilians we're trying to serve are intensifying.'
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