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Humanitarian pause essential to help ease suffering of Gazans, says UN

As the crisis in Gaza continues to worsen amid intense Israeli bombardments and an ongoing ground operation, UN humanitarians reiterated on Friday their call for a humanitarian pause to be able to deliver urgently needed relief items throughout the enclave and evacuate those seriously wounded.

“The solution is a humanitarian pause, that's what we are suggesting. It's something that has been done in many other contexts,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) when briefing reporters in Geneva. “As OCHA, we have deconfliction mechanisms in place, we either have now or have had in the past: northwest Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and many other places.”

OCHA reported on Friday that in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health the death toll over the past 27 days has reached 9,061. Women and children make up 62 per cent of these victims. Some 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, the vast majority during the 7 October attacks by Hamas.

“At least 195 Palestinians were killed and about 800 injured in less than 24 hours between Tuesday, 31 October and Wednesday 1 November in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza,” said OCHA’s Jens Laerke. Some 120 people were believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Nearly 700,000 internally displaced people are sheltering in 149 installations of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) across the Gaza Strip, which have reached almost four times their intended capacity, OCHA said. In some shelters up to 240 people are living in classrooms of 40 to 60 square metres.

Since the start of the hostilities, nearly 50 UNRWA facilities have been damaged by the fighting. Providing humanitarian aid remains extremely challenging due to lack of fuel, ongoing bombardments and disruptions to communication networks.

For Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the UN health agency (WHO), “it's the women and the children, the innocent civilians that are losing here, and that's why we need to get this humanitarian access.” He pointed out that what is needed is “at least a humanitarian pause to bring in the supplies, to bring shelter, to evacuate the most desperately wounded.”

To ease this suffering, OCHA and its humanitarian partners will release on Monday an updated Flash Appeal for $1.2 billion to cover the cost of the needs of 2.7 million people - the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank.

The original appeal, launched 12 October, asked for $294 million to support nearly 1.3 million people and is 25 per cent funded so far.

While much attention has focused on the attacks inside Israel and the escalation of hostilities in Gaza since 7 October, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Friday expressed deep concern on Friday about the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, “amid the increasing and multi-layered human rights violations of Palestinians occurring there.”

According to OHCHR, from 7 October to 2 November, 132 Palestinians, including 41 children, were killed in the West Bank – 124 by Israeli forces and eight by settlers. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed.

“Israeli forces have increasingly used military tactics and weapons in law enforcement operations, including an operation overnight involving air strikes on Jenin refugee camp,” said OHCHR’s spokesperson Liz Throssell. ”Law enforcement is governed by international human rights law, which prohibits the intentional use of lethal force except when strictly necessary to protect life.”

OHCHR informed that since 7 October, nearly 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities have been forced from their homes because of the violence. In these circumstances, settler violence may amount to the forcible transfer of a population - "a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention".

“Settler violence, which was already at record levels, has escalated dramatically, averaging seven attacks a day,” said Liz Throssell. She added that in more than a third of these attacks, firearms were used. “We have documented that, in many of these incidents, settlers were accompanied by members of the Israeli forces while the settlers were wearing uniforms and carrying army rifles. Along with the near total impunity for settler violence, we are concerned that armed settlers have been acting with the acquiescence and collaboration of Israeli forces and authorities.”

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Update crisis oPt / Israel - OCHA - WHO - OHCHR

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