At a joint Egyptian-Jordanian conference on the Dead Sea, Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs & Emergency Relief Coordinator, underlined the pressing need for an immediate ceasefire: “There was a unanimous horror at the vast toll of death, injury[,] destruction, displacement, serial displacement, trauma and deprivation suffered by the people of Gaza in just nine months, as well as the horrendous toll on humanitarian, and including United Nations, workers, of course, from UNRWA in particular, which exceeded the death toll across the whole world in the past 12 years combined.”
How to avert further catastrophes? He said that the working group in which he participated “stressed the need for these immediate measures to facilitate the delivery of aid: number one, a functioning mechanism for operational coordination and notification; number two, full access for basic equipment for safety and security of humanitarian staff; number three, passable roads and clearance of explosive ordnance; number four, unimpeded passage to distribute aid and access communities across Gaza; and finally, sufficient and predictable flows of fuel and prioritized aid, if you wouldn’t mind.”
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