'No safe place for civilians' in Gaza, UN says

Palestinian civilians in densely-populated Gaza have no place to hide from Israel’s military offensive and children are paying the heaviest price, the United Nations said on Tuesday (22/07/2014).

“There is literally no safe place for civilians,” Jens Laerke, spokesman of the UN Office for Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA), told a news briefing in Geneva.

More than 500 people have been killed in the coastal enclave which has an estimated 4,500 people per square kilometer, Laerke said. The priority for aid agencies was protecting civilians and evacuating and treating the wounded.

Nearly 500 homes have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes and 100,000 people have sought shelter in schools of the UN

Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), where they need food, water and mattresses, he said.

Israel began air strikes on the coastal strip on July 8, saying it wanted to halt missile fire out of Gaza by Hamas militants, and launched a ground offensive last Thursday. Israel pounded targets across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, dashing hopes of a pause in the fighting. Hamas rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal last week.

Twenty-nine Israelis, 27 of them soldiers, have died.

But the overwhelming majority of people killed so far in the conflict are Palestinians, including 121 Gaza children under age 18 who make up one-third of the total civilian casualties, Juliette Touma of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said.

More than 900 Palestinian children are also reported to have been injured, according to UNICEF.

“According to an assessment by aid workers on ground at least 107,000 children need psycho-social support for the trauma they are experiencing such as death, injury or loss of their homes,” Laerke said. - Reuters