Speaking by way of video hyperlink from Jerusalem, Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), mentioned folks have been pressured to “completely reset their lives over and over again.”
“People, in the last nine months, have been moved around like ‘pawns in a board game’ – forced from one location to the next, to the next [and] to the next, irrespective of our ability of support them and irrespective of the availability of services wherever they land,” he mentioned.
Humanitarians, in the meantime, additionally need to relocate their base of operations and evacuate from one location to a different, as the army operations shift focus.
“The military operations are pushing [us] again and flipping the table,” he mentioned.
He added that as discussions have been being held with all stakeholders, together with Israeli authorities on bringing aid provides into Gaza and distributing it, the most recent evacuation orders in Khan Younis have “wiped” out all of the arduous work.
Life past creativeness
According to estimates, 1.9 million folks in the war-ravaged enclave are internally displaced – together with folks displaced as much as 9 or 10 instances.
“They have been forced to move because of the patterns of the war, heavy fighting that has impacted them whenever they took the risk to stay, where [they had] houses or where [they had] tents, huts and makeshift shelters,” he added.
Mr. De Domenico famous that humanitarians need to restart their efforts “over and over again”, whereas the displaced should determine the place they will discover meals, water, and medical assist, and reacquaint themselves with their neighbours if they don’t have households.
“And that has stripped apart – again and again and again – and people have to reinvent their ability to cope with condition of lives that are beyond imaginable,” he mentioned.
He additionally emphasised that as the struggle goes on, it continues to generate extra ache, struggling and humanitarian wants. However, humanitarians are “struggling to deliver.”
“We are there to stay and to deliver, to help the people but delivering for us is a daily struggle … literally we have to make gigantic efforts to sustain some lifeline of our services.”
A UN staff inspects an unexploded bomb mendacity on a primary street in Khan Younis, Gaza.
‘Enough of this war’
The OCHA official outlined the challenges for aid staff, explaining that earlier than the struggle, the humanitarian hub was in Gaza City, in the north.
“Then in the night between 11 and 12 October, in the middle of the night, Israeli authorities ordered us to abandon those facilities and move south … we had to comply … to protect the lives of our staff,” he mentioned.
“We left with a feeling of guilt because we knew that we were leaving behind civilians and since then we have been quite determined to not being pushed every time by the conditions to move, unless really the safety comes into [question].”
“We really need to draw a line … enough of this war that keeps on tearing apart the life of people.”
‘Nowhere and no one is safe’
Mr. De Domenico reiterated that “nowhere and no one is safe” in Gaza, neither the civilians nor humanitarians.
So far, no less than 274 aid staff and volunteers have been killed – many whereas they have been working, others at residence with their households.
“[Humanitarians] risk their life every day and there are [few, if any] humanitarian installations that have been spared when the frontline moves … despite our efforts to notify the locations, the reality … is frequently those places are hit,” he added.