'Gaza is worst humanitarian crisis I have seen in 50 years', top UN official says

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.

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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.”

He also said: “We have huge problems of access. We have increasing episodes of civil disorder, which impede our access and attack our drivers.

“We’re having great difficulty getting aid into Gaza now. If Rafah was attacked and if Rafah closed, it would be even more difficult.”

Speaking about the risk the whole of the territory faces, Mr Griffiths said: “We don’t think there is anywhere safe for people to move within Gaza. So the idea of evacuating them to some place of safety, we think is illusory.”

Hamas killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in its cross-border raid on Israel on 7 October and took around 250 others hostage. In retaliatory Israeli strikes, at least 28,576 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Mr Griffiths has negotiated with terrorists during his long career and he said Israel needs to negotiate an end to the war with Hamas, despite Mr Netanyahu vowing to destroy the militant group.

The UN official said: “I think it’s very, very difficult to dislodge these groups without a negotiated solution, which includes their aspirations.

“I cannot think of an example off-hand of a place where a victory through warfare has succeeded against a well-entrenched, group, terrorist or otherwise.”

Mr Griffiths added: “What I found is that the dialogue is a better instrument, even with terrorists to engage and solve or resolve differences.”

He also praised Sky News for its reporting of the civil war in Sudan, where rival military forces are fighting each other.

He said: “I’m really glad you’ve covered Sudan, I think that is exemplary and is wonderful that you’ve done so, because with international attention comes help for our operations, comes help for the people of Sudan.

“Sudan is a place where our absence of knowledge denies us a real sense of the extent of suffering, but the numbers tell the story.”

He said 25 million people need humanitarian assistance in Sudan, eight million people have left their homes, and there have been 10,000 cases of cholera.

“And barely any diplomacy. We need access.

“So we’ve been trying very hard to get the two militaries together, again, to engage in planning on our own access planning, convoy routes and so forth.”

:: See the full interview with Martin Griffiths on The World with Yalda Hakim on Sky News from 9pm tonight.