Gaza at ‘breaking point’ & in death bed

NT Bureau, Agencies

Tel Aviv/Gaza City: Gaza services are close to "breaking point" without fuel supplies, UN humanitarian office (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke said on Tuesday, adding that none of the 569 aid trucks that had reached the enclave so far were carrying fuel.

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged all parties involved to agree to a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and “work toward a lasting peace”.

Posting on social media, the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said 10,000 people had been killed over the course of a month of “intense bombardment” in Gaza, more than 4,000 of them children, adding: How long will this human catastrophe last?

He reiterated his call for a humanitarian ceasefire and the immediate release of hostages held in Gaza, adding: ''History will judge us all by what we do to end this tragedy."

Three Palestinian rights groups have warned that people in Gaza are facing imminent genocide along with mass forced displacement and ethnic cleansing, calling for an immediate ceasefire in the besieged coastal enclave.

“The Israeli military offensive has caused the largest mass displacement of Palestinians in such a short period of time since the 1948 Nakba: around 1,500,000 Palestinians, or about 65 percent of Gaza’s population, are now internally displaced inside Gaza,” Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said in a statement Medics in Gaza warned that thousands could die as hospitals packed with wounded people ran desperately low on fuel and basic supplies.

Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave struggled to find food, water and safety.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will have “overall security responsibility” in Gaza “for an indefinite period” after its war with Hamas and expressed openness to “little pauses” in the current fighting to facilitate the release of hostages.

The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 10,300, including more than 4,200 children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Israeli military says it has surrounded Gaza City and is preparing for expected ground battles.