Relentless Israeli attacks on infrastructure in Gaza and cold weather are making the Palestinian enclave “completely uninhabitable”, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) has warned.
“I fear that many more civilians will be killed,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said on Friday.
“Continued attacks on specially protected facilities, such as hospitals, will kill civilians and there will be a massive additional impact on Palestinians' access to healthcare and overall security.”
Sunghay said his office was also “very concerned about the impact of the cold, rainy weather”, which was “completely predictable” at this time of year.
He said the climate “risks making an already unhealthy situation completely uninhabitable for people.” “Most of them don’t have warm clothes or blankets.”
Most Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced by Israeli attacks, and many are crowded into overcrowded shelters where they are threatened by worsening weather, disease and acute shortages of food, water and medicine.
Sunghay said it would be “disastrous” if the bombing or street fighting taking place in Khan Younis moved further south to Rafah, where around 1.3 million people are now gathering in the Egyptian border town in an attempt to evade Israeli control. assault.
Meanwhile, Georgios Petropoulos, director of the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the months-long war has left 2.2 million people at risk of starvation in the Strip.
“Everyone in Gaza needs help now and the war must stop,” he said.
