Gaza: In light of “astonishing challenges,” the United Nations is preparing to increase aid and the entry of 500 to 600 trucks daily

Dr. Rick Pepperkorn, representative of the World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territory, speaking from Jerusalem at the press conference of United Nations agencies in Geneva, said: “The ceasefire announcement is hopeful, but the challenge ahead is staggering. Addressing the massive needs and restoring the health system will be a complex and difficult task, given the scale and complexity of the operations and the constraints involved.”.

Peppercorn stressed that the World Health Organization and its partners stand ready to support the health system and the people of Gaza, and that the organization is working to expand the scope of operations and mobilize vital supplies and resources to meet immediate needs and support early recovery efforts. He stressed the need to remove the major security and political obstacles that prevent the provision of aid throughout Gaza.

60 day plan

The UN official said that the organization has prepared a 60-day plan to implement it when the ceasefire begins. He explained that “The goal now is to enter between 500 and 600 trucks per day during the coming weeks. This would constitute a huge increase in the number of trucks that arrived in the sector during the past months, which ranged between 40 to 50 trucks per day.”.

Peppercorn indicated that their efforts in the next phase will focus on restoring and expanding basic health services, restoring health infrastructure, strengthening referral pathways for critical care within Gaza and cross-border evacuation, addressing malnutrition, protecting communities from epidemics, and expanding the scope of immunization campaigns to fill the gaps.

Medical evacuation

The representative of the World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territory warned that: “Medical evacuation is still too slow.”. Peppercorn said “If we look at the number of patients or requests submitted between November 27 and December 24, 2024, we find that only 29 patients out of 1,200 patients were approved for medical evacuation abroad.”.

He added: “The real hurdle is the approval process, which is one of the main hurdles.”. He pointed out that among these 1,200 patients, there are 405 children, and only ten of them were approved to be evacuated to travel with companions, stressing that “This needs to change”.

Numbers of deaths

Peppercorn spoke about the study conducted by The Lancet, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Yale University, which actually counted the number of people killed, noting that these estimates are an underestimate.

He added: “It’s probably closer to 70,000 people. And we’re always really raising that number. Secondly, we’re not even talking about what we call indirect deaths: people with all kinds of chronic diseases, etc., who couldn’t get the treatments that They need it and have died over the past 15 months, and that amounts to tens of thousands, that is the estimate.”

35 children are killed every day

In the same press conference, UNICEF spokesman James Elder touched on what was mentioned in the Lancet report regarding the number of casualties among children, which showed numbers higher than what was announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Elder added: “This is very important, because of course we were sticking to using the Ministry of Health figures for children which actually show over 15,000 girls and boys killed. That’s roughly 35 children a day. 35 children killed, every day for 14 months.”.

He also pointed to deaths among children due to hypothermia, which indicates a lack of capacity to bring aid supplies into the Gaza Strip.

He said that he spoke to many people in Gaza yesterday, Thursday, who expressed their happiness that the killing would stop. “But they are living in a tent now, and they will live in another tent on top of the rubble of their homes.”.

He stressed that the ceasefire agreement must now be guaranteed “Meaningful. This means that the authorities, and the signatories to this agreement, must ensure the enabling environment for the delivery of aid through the Gaza Strip.”.