OpEd by Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini: An immediate Gaza humanitarian cease-fire can avert a much larger catastrophe
UNRWA
10 Nov 2023
Philippe Lazzarini is Commissioner-General of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"Water? bread?" These were the questions on the lips of every child I met in Gaza last week as I visited one of the UNRWA shelters in Rafah. I was the first senior U.N. official to enter Gaza since Oct. 7, the day Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 Israeli civilians. In over 30 years of working in conflict zones, my encounter with these desperate children was one of the saddest of my career.
I will never forget the children's faces. As I listened to their stories, I had to keep reminding myself that we were inside a school that had been converted into a shelter — a place that in peacetime is a place for learning, laughter and play. The Ministry of Health in Gaza reports that more than 4,000 of the civilians killed in this war have been children. This one-month toll is higher than the number of children killed in all conflicts around the world in any given year since 2019.
Outside the shelter, the world is becoming very dark for Palestinians in Gaza. Because of the ongoing siege, there is no food, water, medicine or fuel. The markets are almost empty. The trickle of aid that arrives by truck through Rafah is much less than is needed. Municipal services are crumbling. Sewage water is filling the streets. People are queuing for hours at bakeries. Soon, winter will arrive, and many could face starvation.
With Gaza City surrounded, Israel Defense Forces are instructing those civilians who still remain to move to the southern parts of the Gaza Strip. But they are not safe there, either. More than 700,000 people now live in some 150 UNRWA buildings across the Gaza Strip. As I write, nearly 50 of these buildings have sustained damage, and some have been directly hit. Ninety-nine UNRWA colleagues have been killed.
For many Palestinians, this exodus is reminiscent of the original displacement of more than 700,000 people from their towns and villages in 1948, also known as the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic). They read stories of a leaked Israeli government white paper suggesting they be expelled into Sinai. Their fears are compounded when hearing an Israeli politician calling Gazans "human animals" — dehumanizing language I did not think I would hear in the 21st century.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was right to warn Israelis this week, insisting there be "no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Not now, not after the war." He should go further and call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire. The siege of Gaza must end, and continuous humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow into the Gaza Strip without restrictions.
This must be done in the name of basic human rights. But it should also be done to avert an even greater calamity. The collective punishment being meted out to the civilians in Gaza is being extended into the West Bank, where people have been forced from their land or worse, for no reason other than that they are Palestinian. This risks widening the war and setting the whole of the Middle East ablaze.
The present course chosen by the Israeli authorities will not bring the peace and stability that both Israelis and Palestinians want and deserve. Razing entire neighborhoods to the ground is not an answer for the egregious crimes committed by Hamas. To the contrary, it is creating a new generation of aggrieved Palestinians who are likely to continue the cycle of violence. The carnage simply must stop.
This opinion piece was first published in the Washington Post on 9 November 2023.
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