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UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has told the Global Refugee Forum that the people of Gaza “are running out of time and options, as they face bombardment, deprivation, and disease in an ever-ever-shrinking space.”
“They are facing the darkest chapter of their history since 1948. And it has been a painful history,” Lazzarini said on Wednesday, in Geneva, after arriving straight from the besieged enclave.
He said the people of Gaza are now crammed into less than one-third of the original territory, near the Egyptian border.
“It is a living hell” with Rafah now hosting well over a million people. “It used to be home to 280,000 people,” he stressed, and “lacks the infrastructure and resources to support such a population.”
Aid, Lazzarini said, can no longer reach those who could not move to the south.
“It is unrealistic to think that people will remain resilient in the face of unlivable conditions of such magnitude. Especially when the border is so close.”
He pointed out that the entire humanitarian response relies on UNRWA’s capacity and that “it is now on the verge of collapse.”
