3 hour humanitarian corridor in Gaza totally insufficient says UN

Turkmenistan News.Net
Thursday 8th January, 2009

The daily three-hour pause that Israel began in Gaza Wednesday was a good first step but totally insufficient, UN officials warned.

"This pause is potentially a positive step but because we did not have enough warning and because there was a lack of clarity about what this was going to mean, it was very hard for us to make significant use of it, certainly today," UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told a news conference in New York Wednesday, noting that it was still necessary to move through checkpoints.

“I hope we will be able to use such pauses more in the future if it’s clear that they’re going to be at a fixed time, if it’s clear they’re going to be respected and Gaza-wide… [But] three hours a day is simply totally insufficient for us to be able to do that [get food and supplies to all who need it] which is why it cannot be any kind of substitute for a full end to the hostilities which would allow us to really gear up our humanitarian operation,” he said.

“The single biggest problem we have at the moment, apart from getting goods in, is moving around Gaza both for ourselves and the population. The International Red Cross has said and they’re not prone to exaggeration that people are dying because ambulances cannot get to them in time, people cannot get to hospitals.”

UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Director of Operations in Gaza John Ging, said, “That was a precious three hours and sadly now we have 21 more hours to go before they have another three hours of safety, and God knows how many will be killed and injured in the coming period.”

Mr. Ging said he visited the UNRWA school that was the scene of Israeli shelling Tuesday that killed 43 people and injured one hundred others, and all staff there insisted there were no Hamas militants inside the compound itself. Israel says it was returning fire against mortars coming from the area of the school and some media reports have quoted residents corroborating this.

Mr. Ging said the three Israeli shells impacted right up against the boundary of the school and both he and Mr. Holmes said the conflicting reports underscored why an independent investigation of the incident was so necessary.

Mr. Holmes also cited “other dreadful incidents that are coming to our notice,” such as a house in Zaitoun, south of Gaza City, where 30 people may have been killed in a strike, with many still under the rubble.

“The apparent level of civilian casualties continued to rise and to be particularly distressing,” he said, also stressing the need for more fuel, food and medical supplies to be allowed in. Israel has opened the border crossings to scores of supply lorries a day but much more is needed, he added. Meanwhile, there was an alarming build-up of a sewage lake due to the lack of power, with the danger of a potentially health-threatening flood.

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