Banning Aid Is Collective Punishment For Gazans: UNRWA

New York: Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has reiterated that banning the flow of life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza is a collective punishment for the Gazans, as civilian women, children, and men account for the vast majority of the Strip.

Posting on his X account on Sunday, Lazzarini stated that it has been three weeks since the Israeli authorities banned the entry of supplies to Gaza, stressing that the people of Gaza largely depend on imports via land crossings controlled by the Israeli occupation forces to survive.

• Death toll from Israeli aggression on Gaza rises to 50,021 martyrs

Lazzarini added that there is a tight siege, longer than what was in place in the first phase of the war, as there is no food, no medicine, no water, and no fuel. He emphasized that every day that passes without food entering Gaza means that more children go to bed hungry, diseases spread, and deprivation deepens.

In addition, Lazzarini highlighted that every day without food inches Gaza closer to an acute hunger crisis. He called for lifting the siege, stressing that humanitarian aid and commercial supplies must be brought in, uninterrupted and on a large scale.

At dawn last Tuesday, the Israeli occupation military, which has been shuttering Gaza crossings to the entry of aid since the beginning of March, resumed the war of genocide in the Strip, which has heretofore resulted in 673 martyrs and 1,233 injured, among them women, children, and the elderly, amid tough humanitarian conditions.

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