Over one million people in Gaza still urgently need shelter assistance: UN

United Nations: An estimated more than 1 million people, or every other person in Gaza, still urgently need shelter assistance, the Office of the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General said.

According to the office, the shelter assistance needs remain, although humanitarians have distributed thousands of tents and hundreds of thousands of tarpaulins and other items across the strip since the ceasefire, Xinhua news agency reported.

It cited the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as saying that humanitarians in Gaza continue to help the most vulnerable families as harsh winter conditions leave hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggling in makeshift tents damaged by rain, wind and seawater waves.

Meanwhile, UN partners working in water, sanitation and hygiene are facing challenges in managing solid waste as the gap widens between the quantity collected and accumulated, due to the inability to reach landfills, damaged infrastructure and fuel shortages, said the spokesperson’s office.

Despite the impediments, UN Children’s Fund-supported teams have removed 1,000 tonnes of solid waste every month since the ceasefire, helping safeguard the well-being and health of children and their families.

The UN Development Programme noted in December that solid waste management is among the most affected services, with only a few of the temporary dumping sites accessible and operational, compounding the environmental and public health risks, the spokesperson’s office added.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, bringing together UN entities and their partners, urged the Israeli authorities to reconsider their plan to ban many international non-governmental organizations from operating, stressing that those organizations are central to humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.

IANS