ENDLESS SUFFERING: “Humanity is being erased in Gaza…”

Following his recent visit to Palestine, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council says he’s “witnessed the almost unparalleled suffering of families”

In a statement by the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), following his November visit to Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, Jan Egeland said: “The shockwaves from Israel’s ongoing and indiscriminate warfare on Gaza and Lebanon are reverberating across this entire region.

Neither the horrific assault on Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023, nor the indiscriminate missiles launched by militant groups from Lebanon, can justify the degree of destruction on civilian lives and infrastructure in the region that I have witnessed in recent days.

We cannot wait another day for an end to this senseless violence. For the sake of children across the entire region, diplomacy must result in a sustainable ceasefire.

The people I have met in recent days–from those in Gaza City, to the displaced in eastern Lebanon, to those crossing into Syria–longed for peace so they could return home. Children spoke of how much they missed school and their friends, and parents wished for an end to the precarity and suffering that displacement has brought.

The suffering of millions cannot begin to end until those in power push for peace and take action to end the violence.

What I witnessed in Gaza was a society shattered by advanced weaponry, with ongoing military strikes relentlessly impacting the civilian population. War has rules, and it is clear that the Israeli campaign has been conducted with utter disregard for international humanitarian law.

As Gaza has been reduced to rubble, Western leaders have largely stood by unwilling to apply the necessary pressure on the stronger party, Israel, to stop starving the population that they are besieging and bombarding.

In Lebanon, I met people who in just a couple of weeks have lost their homes, jobs and everything in between. They are now staying in almost bare shelters that offer neither protection nor privacy, in fear that the worst is yet to come. The temperature has dropped substantially. People are ill-prepared for what promises to be the coldest winter season for the hundreds of thousands displaced.

Travelling into Syria from Lebanon via the Masnaa border crossing, I saw the huge challenges facing those fleeing violence in Lebanon, exacerbated by vast craters in the road caused by Israeli strikes. Displaced people must be provided with safe passage, shelter, and services.

Those fleeing into Syria arrive in a country with deep, pre-existing economic and humanitarian crises. NRC is providing support to those arriving in Syria, people who took the impossible decision to leave their homes while facing bombardment, and left with only what they could carry.

The aid we and others are currently able to provide is totally insufficient for the needs our staff are seeing. We must be given the right to independently monitor how those who flee from Lebanon to Syria are treated. There must be robust international support to meet people forced to flee, and there must be a genuine, re-energised diplomatic effort from all sides, to halt violence against civilians.

My visit started in Gaza, continued in Lebanon, and finished in Syria, tracing the fallout of this now regional conflict. At each point, the people I met said they wished for only one thing: peace.”

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