The Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday that “a new inferno has been unleashed on Gaza” following the restart of war in the Palestinian territory, the Palestinian Information Centre has reported.
“Gaza is experiencing and enduring death, injury, multiple displacements, amputations, separation, disappearance, starvation and denial of aid and dignity on a massive scale,” said Pierre Krahenbuhl in his speech at the Global Security Forum in Doha. “Just when the important ceasefire on 19 January led people to believe that they had survived the worst, a new inferno was unleashed.”
On 18 March, Israel reneged on the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in place since 19 January and resumed its war of genocide against the Gaza Strip, despite Hamas’s commitment to all terms of the agreement.
Warnings have recently escalated from international aid officials over an imminent new disaster in the Strip, which is suffering from a shortage of basic foodstuffs, medical supplies and humanitarian aid amid the war and the closure of crossings.
The Gaza Strip, whose population is about 2.4 million, is almost entirely dependent on humanitarian aid, which has been completely blocked by Israel since 2 March, when the apartheid state closed the Karm Abu Salem, Zikim and Beit Hanoun crossings.
With unconditional US support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since 7 October, 2023, killing and wounding at least 169,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women. An estimated 11,000 more Palestinians are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israel.
READ: Israel uses starvation as ‘method of warfare’ against Palestinians, South Africa tells ICJ