FOURTEEN thousand babies are at risk of dying in the next 48 hours if aid doesn’t reach them,’ United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs Tom Fletcher told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme yesterday morning.
‘We need to flood the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid… I want to save as many of these 14,000 babies as we can in the next 48 hours.’
He went on: ‘Five trucks went in on Monday and that’s a drop in the ocean. And let’s be clear, those five trucks are just sat on the other side of the border right now. They’ve not reached the community they need to reach.
‘And let me describe what’s on those trucks, it’s baby food, baby nutrition. There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them…
‘We’ve got to get the aid in ourselves. We’ve got, we reckon, clearance for 100 or so trucks to go through today, I hope. Now, it will be very tough. We get impeded at every point, but we’ll load them up with that baby food and our people will run those risks.
‘I’ve been talking to them this morning, they are incredibly, incredibly courageous. They know what’s lying ahead of them – looting, insecurity, the war overhead, the war all around them.
‘But people inside Gaza are so desperate right now and we will do whatever we can to get to them.
‘We are assisting, we will carry on assisting with all our partners and you’ve heard those strong voices raised across the international community that we must have unimpeded aid.
‘We know how to do this, we’ve got the people inside and so we’ll keep trying and I think you’ll hear those voices across the international community in support of what we’re doing.’
Claire Manera, emergency coordinator of medical aid group Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said conditions in Gaza are ‘like nothing I’ve ever seen’, with people flooding into clinics malnourished and displaced.
‘I see women and children who look like they haven’t eaten for weeks,’ she said. ‘We know that they’re suffering because they can’t find a safe place to sleep at night and the hospital facilities that are open are becoming fewer and fewer because they’re being targeted.’
Manera said her team has yet to see any aid on the ground from a first batch of nine trucks cleared for entry on Monday.
‘And nine trucks is nothing compared to the need here,’ she added. ‘We need access to our own aid and we need to be able to use this impartially for the population.’
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israel’s targeting of the Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics in Gaza City on Monday as a ‘flagrant violation of international law, international humanitarian law, and humanitarian norms.’
- Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan faced an onslaught of criticism in Israel yesterday after saying the country is becoming a ‘pariah state’ ruled by people with ‘no morals’.
‘Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country,’ Golan said.
‘And a sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill children as a hobby and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations… This government is full of vengeful types with no morals and no ability to run a country in a time of crisis. This endangers our existence.’