'Humanity's darkest hour' - WHO expert sends Gaza warning

As Israel's offensive in southern Gaza intensifies, the World Health Organization has labelled the ongoing violence as "humanity's darkest hour", while aid agencies have called for a new humanitarian ceasefire.

On Wednesday, Israel continued to engage in fierce battle with Hamas in the city of Khan Younis, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and forced to flee to makeshift refugee camps and surrounding towns and villages.

Dr Richard Peeperkorn, a representative of the World Health Organization's office for the West Bank and Gaza, painted a bleak picture of the unfolding conflict. "The situation is getting worse by the hour, " he said to CGTN. "There is intensified bombing going on all around - this is humanity's darkest hour."

Israeli forces unleashed an aerial and ground blitz against Hamas in Gaza after a cross-border rampage by the enclave's ruling Islamist group on Oct. 7. At least 16,015 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, while 1,200 people were killed in Hamas's incursion into Israel, according to Israeli tallies. 

READ MORE 

Gaza reporter: It's more than a job

German businesses to profit from China's visa scheme

Private jet usage criticized at COP28

Aid agency calls for ceasefire

Aid agencies warn that a humanitarian disaster in Gaza is worsening by the hour with most of its 2.3 million people homeless and trapped in a tiny, embattled coastal enclave, with little food, water, medical care, fuel or secure shelter.

Speaking to CGTN Europe, Juliette Touma, Director of Communications at UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said: "What is needed and what we're calling for and we have repeatedly called for is a humanitarian ceasefire. 

"This should take place right away. There was a brief respite for people in the Gaza Strip when the short pause took place. And that expired, sadly, on the Friday morning. And so at the minimum, we need to get back to that. But we also need constant and regular deliveries of humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip."

"No safe zone in Gaza"

Palestinian medics in the south say hospitals are overflowing with dead and wounded, many of them women and children, and supplies are running out. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people driven out of the north have been seeking shelter in the dwindling number of places in the south designated as safe areas by Israel.

But Touma says that Palestinians are now under threat anywhere they go. "There is no such thing as a humanitarian area, let alone a safe zone in the Gaza Strip," she said. "This does not exist. And the United Nations has been very firm since these reports started coming out about the lack of any safe zone or any safe place across the Gaza Strip. 

"There is no safe zone, no safe place, no place is spared and people have nowhere to go. They're being pushed and pushed and pushed very close towards the border of Egypt. Two million people have nowhere to go in the Gaza Strip and there is no safe zone or safe space. "

Subscribe to Storyboard: A weekly newsletter bringing you the best of CGTN every Friday