Israel turned Gaza into ‘graveyard of children and starving people’: UNRWA chief
Israel turned Gaza into ‘graveyard of children and starving people’: UNRWA chief
M.U.H
12/07/202515
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), says the Gaza Strip has become a “graveyard” for children and starving people following a relentless Israeli genocidal campaign and an all-out blockade of the Palestinian territory.
In an outraged response to the recent killing of nine children, Lazzarini said in a social media post on Friday that Israel was engineering the “most cruel and Machiavellian scheme to kill” across Gaza,
Lazzarini further emphasized that Gaza had become “the graveyard of children and starving people.”
He was reacting to the Israeli military’s killing of 15 people, including nine children and four women, as they waited in line for nutritional supplements in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Wednesday.
“No way out. Their choice is between 2 deaths: starvation or being shoot at,” UNRWA chief said. “The most cruel & machiavellian scheme to kill, in total impunity.”
The international community’s norms and values were “being buried” in Gaza, he said, warning that inaction would “bring more chaos”.
Nearly 170 non-governmental organizations recently called for the immediate discontinuation of the controversial Israel-US-backed program of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
GHF has been tasked by the Israeli regime and the US government to distribute aid in Gaza since late May, when the regime partially eased its blockade after mounting international condemnation and warnings of imminent famine.
Its operations, however, have been stymied by chaotic scenes and daily reports of Israeli forces firing on aid seekers waiting to collect rations from GHF installations.
Hundreds have been killed while trying to access or distribute food from GHF installations.
In Gaza, the UN human rights office said on Friday it has documented the killing of nearly 800 Palestinians seeking aid by Israeli forces. Most of those have been at aid points run by the GHF.
The GHF announced it will now only operate one aid distribution site in Rafah, after shuttering hundreds of others across the blockaded strip, many of them UN aid sites, forcing Palestinians in desperate need of aid to move south.
Aid groups say over 2 million Palestinians are now crammed into less than 15% of the Gaza Strip’s total area.
The genocidal war on Gaza continues to take more lives, as the Israeli military carries out fresh airstrikes on the besieged territory.
The US-Israeli genocide in Gaza began in October 2023. The genocidal war has taken the lives of over 57,700 people, with over 137,600 others injured.
