Brussels - Capitals: Europe and the Arabs

One hundred days of escalation and suffering As we approach the 100th day since the start of the latest escalation in Gaza and Israel, United Nations teams and officials on the ground are still doing their best to provide humanitarian aid, alleviate the suffering of people, and help find a solution to end the escalation.
United Nations organizations and agencies are moving on several paths to provide and deliver aid despite the challenges they face. Its officials, led by the Secretary-General, are also intensifying their diplomatic movements and calls on various occasions to end the conflict that has been raging since October 7, 2023.
Aid has not stopped
Since the first day of the start of the escalation, United Nations teams working on the ground were mobilized, providing food aid to thousands of displaced people who took refuge in the schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which were turned into shelters.
In the first days of the escalation, there were more than 130,000 people who took refuge in 83 UNRWA schools, bringing the total number of displaced people until the beginning of 2024 to 1.9 million people, some of whom were displaced more than once.
This coincided with the call of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, for an immediate cessation of all hostilities, who also condemned the attacks launched by Hamas and others on October 7 on Israeli towns close to the Gaza Strip and central Israel, including the firing of thousands of rockets towards the centers. Israeli population.
Guterres stressed the need for medical equipment, food, fuel and other humanitarian supplies, in addition to the need to ensure that relief workers reach those in need in the Strip.
At the same time, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, confirmed at the time during a visit to Egypt that the organization would work with its partners, the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescents, to provide much-needed medical supplies to health facilities in Gaza.
In the midst of the escalation and complete closure of the Gaza Strip, and the continued provision of aid by UNRWA and other UN agencies to the displaced and those in need in Gaza, UNRWA colleagues fell victim in the first days, and their number increased by the beginning of 2024 to more than 145.
Urgent calls and emergency operations
In order to meet the growing needs, in October 2023, UNRWA launched an urgent appeal to urgently provide $104 million to fund its humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip within 90 days.
The World Food Program also announced at that time the launch of an emergency operation to provide food to more than 800,000 people in Gaza and the West Bank, and the establishment of humanitarian corridors to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and assistance into Gaza, and to provide safe and unhindered passage for its employees and basic goods, at a time when the Under-Secretary-General confirmed Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said the scale and speed of what is happening in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel is "chilling."
On October 11, Griffiths announced the allocation of $9 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to finance immediate humanitarian efforts in the occupied Palestinian territory. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs followed by launching an urgent appeal to mobilize about $294 million to support 77 partners in the field of relief, to respond to emergency needs. For one million two hundred and sixty thousand people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Moving the operations center amid a catastrophic situation
With the Israeli forces issuing orders to transfer civilians in the northern Gaza Strip, UNRWA did not stop providing aid, but it moved its central operations center and international staff to a location in the southern Gaza Strip to continue its humanitarian operations and support for employees and Palestine refugees in the Strip.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations said at the time that transferring more than a million people in Gaza, according to the orders of the Israeli army, through a densely populated war zone to the south of the Strip where there is no food, water or shelter - when the entire area is under siege - is extremely dangerous and may not be possible. It is possible in some cases.
United Nations officials, including Lynne Hastings, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territory at the time, warned of the seriousness of the unprecedented “inhumane” situation in Gaza and the running out of basic supplies.
Lifeline
Amid the total closure, the World Food Program continued to store food supplies in the Egyptian city of Al-Arish near the Rafah border crossing with Gaza to be sent into the Strip as soon as border crossings were allowed. No aid shipments have been allowed into the Strip since the start of the conflict.
While the program was waiting to allow aid to cross, the situation deteriorated further at the health sector level. The Arab National Hospital (Al-Baptist) was bombed, which was condemned by the Secretary-General and the World Health Organization, which called for “compliance with international humanitarian law, which means that health care must be effectively protected and not targeted.” Absolutely".
On October 20, the Secretary-General of the United Nations stressed the need for humanitarian aid to enter the Strip as quickly and on a large scale, in a press conference in front of the Rafah crossing.
After negotiations with all concerned parties to ensure the start of aid delivery to Gaza, the first convoy, which included 20 trucks carrying life-saving supplies provided by the United Nations and the Egyptian Red Crescent, arrived through the Rafah crossing on October 21, 2023.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization said about this first convoy that it represents a “lifeline” for those suffering from serious injuries or chronic and non-chronic diseases. These first batches did not include fuel delivery, prompting UN humanitarian workers to issue multiple calls for fuel to be allowed into the Strip.
Intensifying efforts and appeals
The United Nations has intensified its efforts at various levels to deliver aid and search for a way out of the crisis.
At the end of October, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs visited Israel 

And the occupied Palestinian territory, where he spoke with families in Gaza by phone from East Jerusalem and said that what they have suffered since the start of the Israeli operation is beyond what can be described as devastating.
Griffiths also met in Jerusalem with family members of some Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and said that these families had lived in agony during the past weeks, not knowing whether their loved ones had died or were still alive.
This was followed by a visit by Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General for the Gaza Strip, where he said, “I had never seen anything similar in Gaza when I visited after previous conflicts.”
On November 6, 2023, the Secretary-General announced the launch of a new humanitarian appeal worth $1.2 billion by the United Nations and its partners to assist 2.7 million people, including the entire population of the Gaza Strip and 500,000 people in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
A 10-point plan and a welcome truce
Despite the escalation of hostilities, in early November, UNRWA was able to facilitate the delivery of emergency medical supplies and medicines from the World Health Organization to Al-Shifa Hospital, which was the most important health facility in Gaza.

This operation was carried out despite the great risks to health personnel and partners due to the continued bombing in the Strip. In turn, the International Labor Organization launched a $20 million humanitarian appeal to fund a three-phase response to address the impact of the current crisis on the Palestinian labor market and livelihoods.

UN officials showed their support in various ways, including Catherine Russell, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), who visited the Strip on November 14 and confirmed from there that there is no safe place for children in Gaza. One day later, the United Nations outlined a 10-point plan to stop the killing and destruction in Gaza.
On November 22, the Secretary-General of the United Nations welcomed the agreement reached by Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar and supported by Egypt and the United States of America. The United Nations confirmed that it will mobilize all its capabilities to support the implementation of the agreement "and maximize its positive impact on the humanitarian situation in Gaza."
On the first day of the humanitarian truce, 200 humanitarian aid trucks were sent to Gaza through the Rafah crossing, most of which were unloaded at an UNRWA reception point. The World Health Organization led two missions to transport sick and wounded people from northern to southern Gaza.
United Nations humanitarian agencies continued to bring in aid through the Rafah crossing despite all the challenges and obstacles. In late December 2023, the World Food Program, in cooperation with the Hashemite Charitable Organization, was able to transport more than 750 metric tons of necessary food supplies to Gaza, which is the first time that a direct aid convoy from Jordan has arrived in the Strip since the start of the escalation.
Activation of Article 99
With the resumption of hostilities, the expiration of the humanitarian truce, and the difficulty of distributing aid in Gaza, the Secretary-General of the United Nations sent a letter on December 6 to the President of the Security Council in which he activated - for the first time - Article 99 of the United Nations Charter, which states that “the Secretary-General may To alert the Security Council to any matter that it deems may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

After that, António Guterres addressed the UN Security Council, which was meeting to vote on a draft resolution submitted by the United Arab Emirates regarding the escalation in Gaza and Israel, but it was not adopted due to the use of the United States of America’s veto power.

Guterres stressed at the time the need for the international community to do everything possible to end the plight of the people of Gaza. He urged the Security Council to spare no effort to push for "an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the protection of civilians and the urgent delivery of life-saving relief."

Aid delivery missions did not stop despite the difficult circumstances and the widening escalation in Gaza. World Health Organization teams were sending medical convoys to hospitals. As aid delivery becomes increasingly difficult, diplomatic activity intensifies as 2023 draws to a close.

On December 19, United Nations Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wensland warned that the ongoing war in Gaza and Israel is a tragic reminder that there is no alternative to the legitimate political process that can resolve the core issues of the conflict. He told the Security Council that the year 2023 is one of the bloodiest years in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, while the situation continues to deteriorate at all levels.
In another Security Council session, the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations for Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Affairs, Khaled Khayari, said that the situation in the Middle East is worrying, noting that the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate.
This came days after the Council adopted a resolution calling for “urgent steps to be taken to allow the immediate, safe and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid and to create the necessary conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
Pursuant to Resolution No. 2720, on 8 January, Ms. Sikhrid Kach began her assignment as Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator in Gaza, where she will facilitate, coordinate, monitor and verify humanitarian relief shipments to Gaza.
Kach received a mandate to establish a United Nations mechanism to expedite the sending of humanitarian relief shipments to Gaza through countries that are not party to the conflict.