UN humanitarians struggle to deliver aid in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS - A recent spate of Israeli evacuation orders has forced a shutdown of UN agency humanitarian aid operations in Gaza, a senior UN official said on Monday.

However, two officials in Gaza for the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, known as UNRWA, told reporters its organization continues providing services, albeit constrained while preparing for the beginning this weekend of a massive anti-polio vaccine campaign.

Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that "UNRWA is, given the way they're embedded with the population, is able to operate in situ with people who are already there."

He said the senior UN official was referring to moving about by UN officials and UN humanitarian staff trying to get to places with aid when the opportunity arrives.

"If humanitarian workers are embedded with a certain population in a certain area, and they have the tools to operate and to share and to distribute, they will do so," the spokesman said. "But it is half a drop in a barrel."

Dujarric said there were 16 evacuation orders so far in August, three of them since Friday.

The UN official who briefed earlier said that what happened over the weekend just brought the agencies to the point where they couldn't continue to operate because of conditions not under their control.

"This is not a decision that we're saying we're stopping to operate but practically, we cannot operate," he said, but added, "we are not leaving."

Following the UN official by less than an hour, Louise Wateridge, senior communications officer, and Sam Rose, senior deputy field director for UNRWA in Gaza, briefed from a guest house "in the middle of Gaza".

Rose said UNRWA is continuing to deliver directly through 5,000 staff at 90 health points, mostly schools turned into shelters.

He described Gazans' decrepit living conditions, ripe for the polio virus, and the population fleeing one site for another on an evacuation order.

Wateridge said conditions are so bad and such a limit on what can be brought into Gaza, there is no chlorine for the water, and Gazans can't even buy a bar of soap for washing.

Rose said polio vaccines have arrived in Gaza and will be administered this weekend to 640,000 children in two doses.

Humanitarian partners of the world body reported at least 50,000 children born since the Gaza conflict erupted in October are highly unlikely to have received any immunizations due to the collapsed health system.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that since Friday, the Israeli military's three new evacuation orders were for more than 19 neighborhoods in northern Gaza and in Deir al Balah, with more than 8,000 people staying in the areas, many sheltering in 29 displacement sites.

"In Deir al Balah, the orders have displaced UN humanitarian staff, NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and service providers, along with their families," OCHA said. "These relocations took place at short notice and in dangerous conditions."

The humanitarians are worried about the order issued on Sunday for a part of Deir al Balah, affecting 15 premises hosting UN and NGO aid workers, four UN warehouses, Al Aqsa hospital, two clinics, three wells, one water reservoir and one desalination plant in or near the designated area.

"This effectively upends a whole lifesaving humanitarian hub that was set up in Deir al Balah following its evacuation from Rafah back in May, and it severely impacts our ability to deliver essential support and services," the office said.

OCHA said World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported that nearby health facilities risked becoming non-functional. Many patients and staff have left the Al Aqsa hospital, reducing healthcare capacity as hostilities intensify.

The office said water production in Deir al Balah was reduced by 85 percent due to the loss of access to water sources in areas designated for evacuation.

"As we have reported earlier, only about 11 percent of the Gaza Strip has not been placed under evacuation orders," OCHA said. "Most people in Gaza are now squeezed in this small, overcrowded, polluted area where services are poor, and which is unsafe, just like the rest of the Gaza Strip."

OCHA said the World Food Programme (WFP) reported that its operations were severely hampered by intensifying conflict, a limited number of border crossings, and damaged roads.

The office said that in the last two months, the WFP brought in only half of the 24,000 metric tons of food aid required for operations serving 1.1 million people in Gaza. The WFP also had to reduce the contents of food parcels.

The WFP warned that shell craters and debris made driving slow and challenging for truck drivers even in dry weather. Rain and flooding in two months will make most roads unusable.

The agency also reported that aid workers grappled daily with slow authorizations and frequent refusals from Israelis when they asked for permission to move. Looting and public order problems were frequent, especially when convoys wait hours at holding points.