Day 115 In Gaza: 26,637 Killed, 65,387 Others Injured

Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, confirmed that the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza rose to 26,637, in addition to 65,387 injuries, noting that the occupation committed 14 massacres in 24 hours only, killing 215 and injuring 300.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) stated that the surgery department at Al-Amal Hospital has become non-functional due to the depletion of oxygen supplies.

In addition, the Gaza Municipality warned that the Sheikh Radwan artificial lake reservoir might flood today, thus posing the risk of drowning the houses of hundreds of Palestinians due to the continued rainfall and the lack of fuel. The Municipality also reported that the destruction of most vehicles, coupled with the lack of fuel, has rendered it incapable of providing basic services to citizens. 

It added that Gaza City is suffering from a health and environmental catastrophe due to water scarcity, waste accumulation, and sewage leakage.

This is in parallel with the intense Israeli artillery shelling of the Juhr al-Dik area, south of Gaza and al-Maghazi camp, central Gaza, in addition to an Israeli raid on al-Bureij camp.

OCHA: aid increasingly denied by IOF in Gaza

This situation is further exacerbated by deliveries to northern and central Gaza being deliberately and increasingly denied by the Israeli occupation in the second half of January as a result of excessive delays for humanitarian aid convoys before or at Israeli checkpoints, in addition to the heightened aggression in central Gaza, OCHA revealed in its latest update. 

The organization declared that 51 aid delivery missions were planned between 1 and 25 January, but only eight were allowed and 29 were denied, while others were only “partially facilitated” or postponed, adding that most of the approved missions were related to the delivery of food aid, while those that carry the much-needed support for hospitals was “largely denied”.

In an “emerging pattern”, another eight planned missions were initially approved but then “impeded” as routes designated by the IOF “turned out to be impassable” or the missions had excessive delays applied to them before departure or at checkpoints.

The organization emphasized that access to these checkpoints holds major value as the UN warehouses are heavily congested and “early movement is essential for security, programmatic and protection reasons.”

OCHA also stated that humanitarian deliveries to central Gaza had increasingly been postponed since mid-January due to increased IOF activity in which none of 22 requests by the UN to the IOF urging for opening checkpoints near north of Wadi Gaza were approved.