United Nations Radio

Palestinian woman

The UN humanitarian office is alarmed about the hundreds of deaths and injuries in the Gaza strip caused by three days of Israeli air strikes. The Israeli military action was in response to rocket attacks from militants in Gaza. UN Radio's Samir Aldarabi spoke on the line to Jerusalem with Allegra Pacheco, deputy head of the UN humanitarian office in the occupied Palestinian territory, who told him about the extensive damage and civilian casualties in Gaza.

Duration: 4'10"

ALLEGRA: What we see on the ground is that more and more of the attacks are killing and injuring civilians.  It's very hard for civilians not be injured or even killed when the buildings they are living (in) or their residencies are right next to a target. We're talking about some very powerful type of weaponry that, again, may hit its target but there are the after effects in the surrounding areas. For example, our offices today were quite badly damaged from an air strike that targeted another building, but it also damaged our cars, our offices, and now we won't be able to use our offices.

SAMIR: Will you update us on the humanitarian situation in Gaza Strip?

ALLEGRA: This is a situation that is compounded by an already difficult situation that has been going on since the blockade was imposed more than a year ago. There are shortages of electricity-most people are only getting electricity for about five, six hours a day. Running water is available for 60 per cent of the population once every five to seven days. There are long lines for bread, and the medical situation, the Israelis have opened the crossings in the last few days to get medical supplies in but there were shortages of several pharmaceuticals and some emergency kits in the hospitals as well as one of the key humanitarian concerns is the shortage of different kinds of fuel that are needed in the Gaza Strip. One is an industrial fuel to power the Gaza electric plant. There's also fuel for cooking gas; there's a shortage of that so people cannot cook at home. And then fuel for diesel to operate all the back-up generators that are used when the power outages occur, especially the hospitals. Many of the hospitals are running on back-up generators.

SAMIR: When it comes to the humanitarian situation now, and your concerns about what's going on-the number of casualties, the essential needs in Gaza to cope with the deteriorating situation-can you update us on that?

ALLEGRA: We actually put out a report last week right before the escalation of the violence where we stated very clearly that in light of the ongoing blockade and closings, our capacity to respond to any escalation was reduced because since November 5th, the crossings for humanitarian assistance had for the most part been closed. But since December 16th, for eight days straight right before this violence, we were not able to get anything in. UNRWA, which is the largest provider of food assistance to over 700,000 beneficiaries, had to shut down its food assistance programme.  Right now, what the Israelis have done in the last few days they have opened up the crossings for us to get some materials in. It is not enough: just a few days.  It will take almost several weeks of complete opening every day to really be fully stocked and prepared.

SAMIR: And what is needed now, from your point of view?

ALLEGRA: What is needed now is for the crossings to be opened so that more humanitarian assistance could come in, as well as for fuel for the electric plant. The electric plant is critical not only to provide electricity, but it also powers the entire water system. And this is why most people don't have running water because the pumps run on electricity, and when there are power outages, they rely on back-up generators and half of the wells don't have diesel to run the back-up generators. So fuel, diesel, are critical; more flour and food, and again the spare parts to run all this machinery that has greater wear and tear because everything is being turned on and off with the power outages.

PRES: Allegra Pacheco, Deputy Director of the UN humanitarian office in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Producers: Samir Aldarabi & Dianne Penn