JERUSALEM: In war-ravaged Gaza, death appears to be the “only certainty” for 2.4 million Palestinians with no way to escape the Zionist entity’s relentless bombardment, a UN official said Tuesday, recounting the growing desperation across the territory. “It does feel like people are waiting for death. Death seems to be the only certainty in this situation,” Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, also known as UNRWA, told AFP from Gaza.

For the past two weeks, Wateridge has been in the Gaza Strip, witnessing the humanitarian crisis, fear of death and spread of disease as the war rages on. “Nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe, absolutely nowhere is safe. It’s absolutely devastating,” Wateridge said from the Nuseirat area of central Gaza — a regular target of the Zionist entity’s aerial assaults.

Since October, Zionist forces have pounded the besieged territory from the air, land and sea, reducing much of it to rubble. Now in its eleventh month, the war has created an acute humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom have been displaced several times, running out of basic food and clean drinking water. “We are facing unprecedented challenges when it comes to the spread of disease, when it comes to hygiene. Part of this is because of the (Zionist) imposed siege on the Gaza Strip,” Wateridge said.

Rats, mice, scorpions

Tens of thousands of people have taken refuge in schools across the Gaza Strip, an increasingly regular target of Zionist missiles. The Zionist military says these schools have been used as command-and-control centers by Hamas, a charge the Hamas denies. “Even a school is not anymore a safe place,” said Wateridge. “It feels like you’re never more than a few blocks away from the front line now.” Tired of reacting to the Zionist military’s “continuous” evacuation orders, more and more Gazans are reluctant to keep moving from place to place, Wateridge said. “They feel like they’re being chased around in circles ... It’s quite a lot to move in terms of the heat, young children, elderly, disabled,” she said.

Many Gazans AFP interviewed say they no longer want to move their families, their tents and the few belongings they are still left with. They have criticized what they describe as a lack of clarity in Zionist evacuation orders — including maps dropped from planes — and communications challenges given Gaza’s lack of regular internet access, electricity and telecommunications coverage. Those who are still moving say that wherever they go “there are rats, there are mice, there are scorpions, there are cockroaches,” Wateridge said, adding that insects “spread disease from shelter to shelter.” Last week the Gaza health ministry said the territory had recorded its first polio case in 25 years.

Wateridge said that the UN was waiting for the entity’s green light to go from tent to tent and vaccinate children to prevent polio from spreading. Though talks have been deadlocked for months, Wateridge said Gazans “always hope for a ceasefire” and “keep a close eye on the negotiations”. — AFP