The head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, denounced this Sunday (05/05/2024) that the Israeli authorities prevented him from entering Gaza for the second time since the start of the armed conflict between Israel and the group. Hamas terrorist, on October 7. That, while the executive director of the World Food Program warned of the famine spreading through Gaza.
“Israeli authorities continue to deny humanitarian access to the United Nations,” Lazzarini wrote on X (Twitter). “This same week I was denied entry to Gaza, for the second time, where I was scheduled to be with our UNRWA colleagues, including those on the front lines,” he added. Lazzarini, who has traveled to Gaza four times since fighting broke out, already said in mid-March that Israel had not authorized him to enter the Palestinian enclave.
“In the last two weeks alone, we have recorded 10 incidents of shooting at convoys, detentions of UN staff including intimidation, stripping, threats with weapons and long delays at checkpoints forcing convoys to travel in the dark or to abort,” he said, and then called for an “independent investigation” into the rocket fire that caused the closure of a key humanitarian aid crossing between Israel and Gaza.
Nobody talked about famine
Lazzarini also called on “Hamas and other armed groups to stop attacks on humanitarian crossings, refrain from diverting aid and ensure that it reaches all those in need.” Precisely the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezedin al Qasam Brigades, claimed responsibility for Sunday’s rocket fire, stating that the fighters attacked Israeli troops in the area of the Kerem Shalom border crossing. The attack left three soldiers dead, according to the Israeli Army.
Meanwhile, Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, said in an interview with NBC that in Gaza there was “famine, full-fledged famine, in the north, and it is moving south.” The Israeli Ministry of Defense in charge of delivering aid to the Palestinian territories responded that the delivery of aid is intensifying and that in the meetings between the Israeli and United Nations authorities no one has talked about famine.
DZC (AFP, Reuters)
