The United Nations called on Israel to open all crossings leading to the Gaza Strip “immediately,” to allow humanitarian aid to enter the population under siege for two years, as the famine crisis continues and the health conditions in the Strip worsen.
Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that the organization “demands unhindered humanitarian access,” stressing that “the real test of the agreement between Israel and Hamas is not in the press conferences, but in the world’s ability to feed children and provide medicine for the sick.”
Fletcher indicated that he will go today, Thursday, to the Rafah crossing from the Egyptian side to follow up on the efforts made to reopen it, after a closure that lasted for several months due to the Israeli siege.
At the beginning of the week in Sharm El-Sheikh, the leaders of the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey signed the document of guarantees for the Gaza Agreement, which was brokered by US President Donald Trump to establish a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners, with the parties pledging to work for “permanent peace.”
On the other hand, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation stated that the reopening of the Rafah crossing “is imminent,” amid increasing international pressure to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid accumulated on the Egyptian side of the border.
The Gaza Strip is facing one of the worst humanitarian disasters in its history, as last August the United Nations declared famine in several areas, after a devastating two-year war that killed more than 67,000 people and injured about 170,000 others, the majority of whom are children and women.
