United Nations Radio

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a worsening and an increasingly alarming crisis because the people are increasingly cold, hungry, often lacking power and water and other basic services and facilities as well as facing the constant threat of bombing and shelling.

Humanitarian situation worsening in Gaza

That's what the top UN humanitarian official told reporters at U headquarters Monday.
Under Secretary-General John Holmes says this comes against the background of a population whose vulnerability has been dramatically increased by the past 18 months of effective blockade of most goods coming into Gaza.
He says besides the food situation, there's particular concern over the situation of the health system:

"I think the second point is the state of the health system and which we discussed before is increasingly precarious and in danger of being overwhelmed by the large numbers of wounded but of course also threatened by the lack of mains power-mains electricity because they are running more or less full time on their generators -their generators depend on supplies of fuel which are very limited themselves but also on their ability to continue to operate when they are not supposed to be operating on a 24 hour basis."

Holmes says the most urgent need now is for an end to the violence explaining that's because of the difficulty it creates in trying to get humanitarian aid into Gaza in a systematic way.
This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.
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