The UN’s top aid official has said the Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza has been just as devastating as in the north, creating “apocalyptic” conditions and ending any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.
Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said he was speaking on behalf of the entire international aid community in saying the continuing offensive had robbed aid workers of any significant means of helping the 2.3 million people of Gaza, other than to call for an immediate end to the fighting.
His comments came as the Israeli military said it had stormed southern Gaza’s main city in the most intense day of fighting so far, and hospitals struggled to cope with scores of dead and wounded Palestinians.
“What we’re saying today is: that’s enough now. It has to stop,” Griffiths said in an interview with the Guardian, adding that the small amount of aid being allowed into Gaza could no longer be distributed, since the Israeli ground offensive had spread to southern Gaza and the city of Khan Younis, bringing the humanitarian operation effectively to an end.
“It isn’t really a statistically significant operation any more,” said Griffiths, who is also UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs. “It’s a bit of a patch on a wound and it doesn’t do the job, and it would be an illusion for the world to think that the people in Gaza can be helped by the humanitarian operation under these conditions.
“This is an apocalyptic situation now, because these are the remnants of a nation being driven into a pocket in the south.”
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