The UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs said it was worse than “awful scenes” he witnessed during the civil war in Syria a few years ago and worse than the “horrors” that were the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s.
A top UN official has warned the deteriorating situation in Gaza is the worst humanitarian crisis he has ever seen in his 50-year career.
Speaking to Sky News’ Yalda Hakim, Martin Griffiths said it was because “people can’t escape. They’re blocked in, they’re not able to run out of Gaza”.
“I think this is the worst [crisis] in my 50 years of experience.”
The UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs said it was worse than “awful scenes” he witnessed during the civil war in Syria a few years ago and worse than the “horrors” that were the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s.
He compared the situation in Gaza with the current war in Sudan where “the suffering is quite likely on a similar scene” – but although eight million people have been displaced, one and a half million have left the country in northeast Africa.
“Now I’m not saying that’s a wonderful thing, but it’s a choice that they can make. This is not a choice that can be made in Gaza,” he said.
Since the war began on 7 October last year when Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel, about 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes due to retaliatory Israeli strikes.
Large areas in northern Gaza have been completely destroyed, the majority of people have moved further south, and a humanitarian crisis has left a quarter of the population starving.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed Hamas gunmen are hiding in Rafah, on the southern Egyptian border, and is mulling launching a ground assault on the city.
In Rafah, 1.4 million people – over half the territory’s population – are crammed into tent camps and overflowing apartments and shelters in the city.
Mr Griffiths warned that if there was such a ground operation by Israeli forces, “please don’t think that a humanitarian operation can manage to help people in the way that we would like. It won’t.”
He added: “With a compression of over a million people into that pocket, down around Rafah, without any choice of them being able to go further south… we’re extremely worried about the lack of operating conditions for any kind of humanitarian operation.”