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Death ‘the only certainty’ for Gazans: UN official
territory.
“It does feel like people are waiting for death. Death seems to be the only certainty in this situation,” Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA, told AFP from Gaza.
For the past two weeks, Wateridge has been in the Gaza Strip, witnessing the humanitarian crisis, fear of death and spread of disease as the war rages on.
“Nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe, absolutely nowhere is safe. It’s absolutely devastating,” Wateridge said from the Nuseirat area of central Gaza – a regular target of Israel’s aerial assaults.
Since fighting broke out in October, Israeli forces have pounded the besieged territory from the air, land and sea, reducing much of it to rubble.
Now in its eleventh month, the war has created an acute humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom have been displaced several times, running out of basic food and clean drinking water.
Tens of thousands of people have taken refuge in schools across the Gaza Strip, an increasingly regular target of Israeli missiles.
“Even a school is not anymore a safe place,” said Wateridge.