UNRWA Chief: Tel Aviv Continues to Deny Humanitarian Access to UN in Gaza

Philippe Lazzarini made the comment in a Sunday post on X social media platform, after the regime prevented him from entering the besieged territory for the second time.

“The Israeli authorities continue to deny humanitarian access to the United Nations,” Lazzarini said, adding, “Just this week, they have denied - for the second time- my entry to Gaza where I planned to be with our UNRWA teams, including those on the front lines.”

He noted that there has been a recent “increase in the denial of humanitarian access & attacks on humanitarian workers and convoys” in Gaza.

“Only in the past 2 weeks, we have recorded 10 incidents involving shooting at convoys, arrests of UN staff … & long delays at checkpoints forcing convoys to move during the dark or abort,” Lazzarini said.

The UNRWA chief noted that preventing the movement of aid convoys and restricting access to the territory come “at the time we are engaged in a race against the clock to avert famine in Gaza.”

“I call on the Israeli authorities to facilitate humanitarian access across the Gaza Strip, including to the north,” Lazzarini said, stressing, “The denial of humanitarian access is a violation of [international] humanitarian law.”

His remarks came after the World Food Program (WFP) said there is a “full-blown famine” in the northern Gaza Strip following months of Israel’s genocidal war against the blockaded Palestinian territory.

Israel waged a genocidal war on the besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas Resistance group carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Israel has imposed a complete siege on the densely populated territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli onslaught in October of last year has grown to almost 34,700, the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry said on Sunday.