Gaza 'hellscape' is 'a stain on our conscience,' UNICEF tells CGTN

The continuing blockading of aid for the Gaza Strip is "a man-made problem" creating a "hellscape of suffering" for children, a spokesperson for the UN aid agency UNICEF has told CGTN – insisting that a refusal to pressure for change would be "a stain on all of our conscience".

"The situation currently is beyond our imagination – it's even beyond description in so many ways," Tess Ingram told CGTN. "We're now at more than nine weeks of a blockade that has prevented anything, a drop of water, a grain of wheat from entering the Gaza Strip. 

"And that has undone all of the good work that humanitarian agencies were able to do during the ceasefire and push children back into an absolute hellscape of suffering."

Ingram says the answer to the problem is straightforward: for Israel to lift the blockade. 

"It's very simple, this is a man-made problem that can be rectified," she said. "It is imperative on us as an international community to increase the pressure to ensure that this blockade is lifted, and ideally that there's a ceasefire reinstated."

Ingram said UNICEF wants to see more action from the international community. 

"We need world leaders to act," she said. "If the images coming out of Gaza, the preventable death of children – if that is not enough to motivate world leaders to continue to use their influence to change the situation in the Gaza Strip, then that is a stain on all of our conscience."

Israel's counter-proposal is that it should shut down the aid system and take over, but Ingram says UNICEF believes this would make matters worse. 

"The details of the plan that's been presented to the humanitarian community would only really increase suffering," she said. "We believe that forcing people to enter a militarized area to access rations of aid is not the correct approach, it does not align with the humanitarian principles of how aid should be provided."