Gaza has become ‘uninhabitable’: UN humanitarian chief

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths Friday said Gaza had become “uninhabitable” after relentless bombing by Israeli forces since early October.
“Three months since the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair,” Griffiths said in a statement.
“Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence — while the world watches on.
“The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than 2mn people.” With much of the Gaza Strip already reduced to rubble, air strikes continued through the night in the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah as well as parts of central Gaza, AFP correspondents reported Friday.
“We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity,” Griffiths said.
“This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.”
Israeli bombardment and ground invasion have killed at least 22,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Bombing continued across Gaza Friday as the world began to digest Israel’s first proposals for the administration of the territory after its war with Hamas, now approaching its fourth month.
Conditions for Gaza’s civilians are precarious, with the UN estimating 1.9mn people are displaced.
AFPTV footage Friday showed entire families, seeking safety from the violence, arriving in Rafah in overloaded cars and on foot, pushing handcarts stacked with possessions.
“We fled Jabalia camp to Maan (in Khan Yunis) and now we are fleeing from Maan to Rafah,” said one woman who declined to give her name. “(We have) no water, no electricity and no food.” A spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, told AFP that Rafah is overwhelmed by the influx.
“The city is usually home to only 250,000 persons. And now, it’s more than 1.3mn,” said Adnan Abu Hasna.
Abu Mohamed, 60, who fled to Rafah from Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, said he believed the future of the territory was “dark and gloomy and very difficult”.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported renewed shelling and drone fire in the area around Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis yesterday after seven displaced people, including a five-day-old baby, were killed while sheltering in the compound.
Civilian deaths have soared during the conflict and the UN has warned of a humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of thousands displaced, facing famine and disease.