DaysofPal – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned that Gaza is being systematically destroyed and transformed into a wasteland, rendering it increasingly uninhabitable.
“Children in Gaza are starving, families are being forcibly displaced, and people are terrified,” UNRWA said in a statement, highlighting the catastrophic humanitarian collapse unfolding under Israeli attacks.
UNRWA Media Advisor Adnan Abu Hasna described the situation in Gaza City as “madness,” noting that more than 70% of the city has already been reduced to rubble. He said essential infrastructure, including water and sanitation systems as well as schools that once served as shelters, has been obliterated.
“Services in Gaza City are almost completely halted,” Abu Hasna added, warning that most residents are being squeezed into an area of no more than 15 square kilometers under relentless bombardment.
“It is unconscionable that a million Palestinians are crammed into this small space,” he said, pointing out that the south of Gaza, where over 1.2 million Palestinians are already packed into just 35 square kilometers, cannot absorb another million people. Israel’s continued obstruction of tents, medicines, and medical equipment, he warned, makes survival nearly impossible.
Abu Hasna cautioned that the ultimate goal of these policies appears to be making Gaza unlivable and pushing its residents to emigrate by sea or air. “UNRWA, with thousands of employees on the ground, is witnessing this disaster firsthand,” he said, calling for urgent Arab, Islamic, and international intervention “before it is too late.”
His warnings were echoed by Olga Cherevko, spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), who said Israel has effectively imposed a “death sentence” on Gaza City.
Speaking from Deir al-Balah via video link to UN headquarters in New York, she said, “Gaza City has been sentenced to death: leave or die. Hundreds of thousands of exhausted, tired, and terrified civilians have been ordered to flee into an overcrowded area, where even small animals struggle to find space.”
Cherevko urged immediate steps to halt the violence and open all crossings for unimpeded humanitarian aid delivery, including the northern Gaza. “The people of Gaza are not asking for charity; they want the right to live in safety, dignity, and peace,” she said.
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