A humanitarian disaster in Gaza is being deepened by a total breakdown in law and order, and the conflict between Israel and Hamas is rendering the enclave uninhabitable, a senior official of the main UN aid agency there, UNRWA, said on Friday.
UNRWA official Natalie Boucly also said arrest warrants issued against senior Israeli politicians as well as a leader of Hamas by an international tribunal meant there would be a reckoning for the suffering inflicted on millions.
"Basically, the entire population of Gaza is in desperate need of assistance amid a looming famine," said Boucly, UNRWA's deputy commissioner-general, programs and partnerships.
Banning UNRWA
Israel's parliament passed a law last month that will ban UNRWA from operating in the country when it takes effect in late January. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has said its implementation "will have catastrophic consequences."
UNRWA has faced a list of controversies since Hamas invaded southern Israel and murdered some 1200 people. Notably, some UNRWA staff have been accused of participating in the attacks, which saw over 250 people abducted. A UNRWA social worker abducted Yonatan Samerano during the attacks, and his mother has since campaigned for the UNRWA chief for his release.
Since the initial accusations, the IDF has accused multiple UNRWA workers of being employed by both the UN agency and the Hamas terror group. Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, an employee for UNRWA in Lebanon, was revealed to be the head of Hamas' Lebanon branch before he was eliminated.
UN Watch, an NGO investigating the United Nations, claimed that Former UNRWA commissioner general Pierre Krahenbuhl had secretly met with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist officials in Lebanon - and told the groups, "We are one."
Access to humanitarian aid
Speaking at a conference in Cyprus, Boucly said 500 trucks of pre-war aid entering the Palestinian enclave daily had now fallen to 37, with those supplies now at risk of looting by criminal gangs.
Nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted by Hamas-led gangs on Nov. 16 after entering Gaza in one of the worst aid losses during 13 months of war in the enclave.
"Gaza has become uninhabitable," she said, calling the situation a failure of humanity.
"There has to be accountability for all the grave violations of international law that are occurring. The issuance of the ICC arrest warrants yesterday against three individuals is the start of that accountability," she said.
Hamas have been recorded stealing aid, using UN facilities in civilian zones and manufacturing humanitarian crises throughout the conflict.
Israel has frequently drawn attention to this but has faced numerous barriers in ensuring that aid is distributed to the civilians of Gaza. During one point of the conflict, Egypt prevented aid from entering Gaza via the Rafah crossing in protest of Israel's military occupation of the Gazan side of the city - despite it being revealed Hamas had held hostages in Rafah and had constructed significant infrastructure.
The United Nations has also been accused of failing to deliver aid, allowing it to pile up in wait, despite being it admitted into the enclave by Israel.
International efforts to increase aid flow into the enclave have also failed. Notably, the United States invested over $200 million in an aid pier which would later be deconstructed after failings.
Jordan, the US, Spain, and other countries also attempted to airdrop aid as a way to bypass Hamas, but the drop in aid proved insufficient. The US was later forced to reject reports that the aid had killed Palestinians.
The International Criminal Court issued warrants on Thursday for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, commonly known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.