MAPW has provided comment to Croakey News following the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza.
MAPW President Sue Wareham told Croakey that the immediate needs for the people of Gaza are humanitarian. “Yet, there is no detail in the ceasefire agreement about whether full and unimpeded access for food, clean water, emergency medical and other healthcare will be secured,” she said.
The agreement states that “humanitarian aid procedures…will be done subject to the humanitarian protocol agreed upon under the supervision of the mediators”. It also says that “all ill and wounded Palestinian civilians will be allowed to cross via Rafah border crossing”.
“But that does not explain how hundreds of thousands of ill and wounded people will reach the crossing, and where they will go – and whether any who leave will be allowed back into their homeland if they wish to return,” Wareham said.
A relief effort within Gaza – commensurate with the scale of the destruction – is needed, she said. Prime responsibility must fall on “those nations whose action or inaction has contributed most to this catastrophe”.
Wareham said, “for children and adults dying from cold, hunger, dirty water and lack of very basic healthcare, the emergency measures cannot wait”.
“In the longer term, the impacts of the past 15 months on Palestinians, especially the children who have experienced so much terror and deprivation, will be lifelong and probably intergenerational, as it will be for Israelis who have also known terror,” she said.
Read the full article over at Croakey News.