NEW YORK: Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, Corinne Fleischer, said humanitarian operations have become ever more difficult to carry out in Gaza.

‘Aid workers spend ‘endless hours’ waiting for movement authorizations, and then have to wait again at holding points and checkpoints. Roads are already destroyed, and the upcoming winter season will make them even more impassable,’ she said during a press conference on Wednesday in New York.

Increased violence is ‘choking our efforts to prevent famine in Gaza, where half a million people are in catastrophic and famine-like conditions, he stressed.

The WFP official traveled to Gaza at the end of July and spent a week in the Strip, where some two million Palestinians are crammed into ever-decreasing space. She witnessed people fleeing in the wake of Israeli evacuation orders.

Fleischer said that since she left Gaza, humanitarians have seen more Israeli evacuation orders and the massive deterioration of the security environme
nt, which have affected their activities.

She appealed for more crossing points into the enclave, streamlined operations so humanitarians can carry out their tasks, and the restoration of law and order so that they can safely reach people in need.

‘WFP lost access to its third warehouse and last operational warehouse in Gaza in the Middle Area under evacuation order. We lost five WFP-supported community kitchens that had to be evacuated, and we lost close to 20 distribution points across the Strip,’ she said.

The evacuation orders also forced WFP to flee its main operational center in Gaza under short notice – the third time since the conflict began.

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA