Approximately a million people is ahead of the expected Israeli ground offensive, according to UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths fled from the northern Gaza Strip to the south.
Griffiths says his most important concern is to bring aid supplies to the Palestinian coastal strip. It is important to help the people who are still on the run and who have already arrived in the south. “They can’t get out of Gaza,” says the UN diplomat about the area that Israel sealed off after the terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas.
Griffiths plans to travel to Cairo tomorrow to negotiate with senior Egyptian officials about opening the southern border with Gaza to aid deliveries. He also reports on “hourly” negotiations with Israel. “My most important message: time is short,” says the emergency aid coordinator in view of the increasingly poor supply situation in the Gaza Strip.