‘Gaza has become a place of death and despair’: UN relief chief

WASHINGTON (AA) : The UN’s relief chief on Friday warned that the Gaza Strip has become “uninhabitable” since the Oct. 7 attacks, and called for an immediate end to the conflict.

“Three months since the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said in a statement.

A public health disaster is unfolding, he said, adding that famine is around the corner.

“For children in particular, the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out.

“Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence – while the world watches on,” he stressed.

Griffiths also warned against the growing tension in the West Bank, and regional spillover of the war.

‘This war should never have started’

The UN will 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,” he said.

It is time for the parties to meet all their obligations under international law, he said, calling on the international community to use all its influence in this regard.

“This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end,” he stressed.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 22,600 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,910 others injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.