9 months after fighting in Gaza, population entirely dispossessed of livelihood means, says UN official

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - After nearly nine months of the war that started on Oct. 7, 2023, the Gaza population has been almost entirely dispossessed of the means to ensure food security, shelter, health, and livelihood, a UN official told journalists on Friday.

Maryse Guimond, from the Palestine office of the UN Women, spoke at a UN news conference after completing a one-week mission inside Gaza.

“What I have seen defies description,” said Guimond. “The moment you enter at the Kerem Shalom crossing, and the fence closes behind you, you feel locked into a world of devastation.

“Homes, hospitals, schools, universities, daycare centers have been demolished. As you move toward the middle area, you see crowds of people -- men, women, and children -- in makeshift tents, trapped in a world of scarcity.”

She said that more than 1 million people in Gaza are in constant displacement, and nowhere is safe for women and girls in Gaza, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times.

Guimond said people are moving to any available open space, including roads, agricultural land, and damaged buildings, as they are displaced into increasingly smaller areas that are unable and unequipped to support them.

“After nearly nine months of war, the population has been almost entirely dispossessed of the means and capacities to ensure food security, shelter, health, and livelihood,” said explained.

“Women were asking me, ‘When can we go back to our homes?’ Each displacement has brought more loss and fear,” said Guimond, noting that “Gaza is more than two million stories of loss.”

- Wanting the war to stop

Gaza’s people are asking for the war to stop as every day, the conflict brings more destruction and killing.

When boys and girls asked Guimond when the war would end, she said she had no answer.

Every woman she met had a story of loss, and more than 6,000 families lost their mothers.

“One million women and girls have lost their dignity, their homes, their families, their memories,” said Guimond.

It is crucial to protect the rights and dignity of the people of Gaza, especially women and girls, who have borne the brunt of this war.”

At the same news conference, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), spoke about medivacs from Gaza, saying that during the current conflict, around 4,800 patients have been medivacked from Gaza, most of them to Egypt and the region.

“WHO estimates there is a need to medivac at least another 10,000 patients out of Gaza,” said Peeperkorn.

Some are related to war, and others are related to chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and other non-communicable diseases, including severe mental health cases.

Peeperkorn said the WHO is asking the Israeli authorities to open the Rafah Crossing again.

The other request is to reopen the Karem Shalom Crossing when it is safe for sustained transfer of patients from Gaza to the West Bank and East Jerusalem referral hospitals, “just like it was before the war when 50 to 100 patients per day were referred,” to the hospitals.

Peeperkorn said: “WHO is ready to support this to ensure that it happens in an organized way and that ambulance services are supported” to the receiving hospitals.