NGO Network calls for declaring Gaza a disaster zone

The Palestinian NGOs Network has called for declaring the Gaza Strip a disaster zone and for the redirection of the Palestinian economic policies to boost Palestinian steadfastness, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.

The network said in a statement yesterday that Israeli occupation forces destroyed more than 70 per cent of the buildings in Gaza, making most of the Strip’s areas unlivable, amid severe shortage of food and aid, and the collapse of the health sector and other basic services.

It also called for confronting this humanitarian catastrophe by intensifying aid campaigns and enhancing popular solidarity to provide Gaza and the northern West Bank with the basic needs to confront Israeli displacement plans and urged for pressuring the UN to assume its responsibilities for bringing in urgent aid and opening safe humanitarian corridors.

“The international silence about this catastrophe in Gaza and the West Bank exacerbates the suffering of our people and encourages the IOF to continue its crimes,” it added, calling for an urgent international move to stop the policies of the Israeli occupation aimed at forcibly displacing the Palestinians.

The NGOs Network called for the formation of a unified national team that includes official authorities, civil organisations and the private sector, to bring in aid, secure the needs of the displaced to overcome the cold weather, limit the losses of farmers in the northern occupied West Bank and compensate them for the occupation’s aggression through a specialised committee that includes the Ministry of Agriculture and other concerned authorities.

Gaza: Israel targeting municipal workers in violation of ceasefire