Insist on ceasefire, not humanitarian pause for Gaza Strip, aid agencies ask Dutch MP's

Aid agencies want a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, not a “humanitarian pause.” We cannot work in pauses, Oxfam Novib director Michiel Servaes said during a conversation with the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament. A pause is not a sustainable solution, said Pim Kraan of Save the Children.

In Brussels, EU leaders will discuss a call for a humanitarian corridor and pause in the fighting to allow emergency aid for the over 2 million Palestinians living in the small coastal strip at a summit on Thursday and Friday. Israel cut the Gaza Strip off from the outside world after Hamas attacked early this month. Minimal aid has arrived from Egypt.

Only 2 percent of the food that normally enters Gaza currently reaches the area. According to Oxfam Novib, that is evident from an analysis of UN figures. Hospitals have stopped operating because they have run out of fuel. Israel refuses to let fuel in for fear that it will end up in the hands of Hamas.

The aid organizations are very concerned about their employees in Gaza. Oxfam Novib has 33 people there, and Save the Children has 35. These employees have become refugees themselves, and contact is becoming increasingly difficult, according to Servaes.

According to Hamas-controlled authorities in the Gaza Strip, over 6,500 people have been killed there by Israeli bombardments. According to Servaes, the UN endorses those figures. The death toll will be higher because there are also about 1,500 missing. Some 1,400 people have been killed on the Israeli side.