Gaza: What's happening defies decency, humanity, law - OCHA Presser | United Nations

Briefing by Mr. Jonathan Whittall, OCHA's Head of Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, on Gaza.

-----------------------------------------------------

"What is happening here defies decency, it defies humanity, it defies the law," a UN humanitarian official said Wednesday, describing mounting horrors in Gaza as a “war without limits.”

Briefing reporters in New York via video call, Jonathan Whittall, Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, recounted a recent mission to Rafah, where he and colleagues uncovered a mass grave containing the bodies of medics. “These were medical workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and the Civil Defense, still in their uniforms, still wearing gloves, they were killed while trying to save lives,” he said. “The ambulances were hit one by one as they advanced, as they acted into Rafah.”

Whittall said the site was marked by crushed emergency vehicles, including a fire truck and a UN car. The incident, he said, was only one in a “parade” of horrors. In the past two weeks alone “UN premises have been shelled with tank fire, killing one of our colleagues and seriously injuring others. We've had international aid compounds and hospitals that have been hit,” he said. “People have been bombed at food distribution points where aid workers have also been killed.”

Since the collapse of a ceasefire two weeks ago, forced displacement has surged, Whittall said, with about 100,000 people fleeing Rafah in the past 48 hours alone - many under fire. “I saw some of them in the same mission that I described at the beginning... running towards us and being shot in their backs,” he said.

According to OCHA, 64 percent of Gaza is now under forced evacuation. “Nowhere and no one is safe in Gaza,” Whittall said. “My colleagues tell me that they just want to die with their families. Their worst fear is to survive alone.”

Whittall also spoke about a total aid blockade. “Today, unfortunately, marks one month without any supplies entering into Gaza,” he said. “That’s one month of no food, no fuel, no aid, nothing has entered. So, 2.5 million people are trapped, bombed, starved.”