Commissioner General, Philippe Lazzarini, recalls that “in the meantime, blankets, mattresses and other winter supplies have been held up in the region for months, awaiting approval to enter Gaza”
The Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, denounced this Friday the deaths of babies due to extreme cold and lack of shelter.
“Meanwhile, blankets, mattresses and other winter supplies have been held up in the region for months, awaiting approval to enter Gaza,” he said in a message published on the social network X, asking for the flow of supplies to continue.
🛑 babies are freezing to death due to cold weather & lack of shelter.
Meanwhile, blankets, mattresses & other winter supplies have been stuck in the region for months waiting for approval to get into Gaza. +
An immediate flow of much needed basic…— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini)
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) denounced the “desperate conditions” in which children in Gaza find themselves, after four newborns died of hypothermia due to the low temperatures.
The Israeli offensive has already caused the deaths of around 45,400 Palestinians in the enclave, according to Gaza authorities, while around 810 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and in settler attacks since then in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel launched its campaign in the Gaza Strip promising to destroy Hamas after the Palestinian group’s attack on Israeli territory, on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people died and another 250 were taken hostage.
Israel’s bombing and offensive campaign, which has lasted almost 15 months, has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, and devastated the territory’s health sector.
More than 90% of the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have been expelled from their homes and the majority of them are now sheltering in extensive and miserable improvised tent camps in the south and center of the territory in the middle of winter, with temperatures falling below ten degrees Celsius.
