UN agencies warn of humanitarian disaster in Gaza amid aid blockade, evacuation challenges

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to face a terrible humanitarian situation, said spokespersons from several United Nations agencies on Friday, citing difficulties in evacuating patients and the ongoing Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid.

Speaking via video link at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), stressed that local medical workers are doing their utmost to treat the injured despite severe shortages of medical supplies.

She underscored that many patients are in urgent need of medical treatment outside Gaza.

"So far we've only had 255 patients in total evacuated since 18 March, and as I said last week, more than 10,000 patients, including approximately 4,500 children, need urgent medical care outside Gaza," said Harris.

At the same time, Gaza is increasingly facing shortages of basic supplies. Israel blocked the entry of goods and supplies into Gaza on March 2, following the end of the first phase of a January ceasefire deal with Hamas. It resumed attacks on Gaza on March 18.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN and its partners have 9,000 truckloads of vital supplies ready to move into Gaza. More than half of these contain food assistance, months' worth of food for millions of people.

Though Israel has said its blockade aims to prevent Hamas from using aid supplies for military purposes, OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke called the legitimacy of this claim into question. "I received this morning of some of the aid that's waiting just outside the borders to get in. It includes educational supplies, children's bags, shoes -- size three to four years old and up to 10 years old, stationery and toys, rice, wheat flour, canned beans, eggs, pasta, various sweets, tents, water tanks, cold storage boxes, breastfeeding kits, breast milk substitutes, energy biscuits, shampoo and hand soap, floor cleaner. I ask you, how much war can you wait with this?" he said.

More than 53,000 people in Gaza have died since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out in October 2023.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, has renewed a bilateral currency swap agreement with the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye.

The total value of this agreement is 35 billion yuan (about 4.88 billion U.S. dollars), or 189 billion Turkish lira, the PBOC said in a statement on its website on Friday.

The agreement is valid for three years and can be renewed upon mutual consent, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, the two sides have also signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a yuan clearing arrangement in Türkiye.

These arrangements mark a new stage in China-Türkiye financial cooperation and are expected to facilitate the use of local currencies by enterprises and financial institutions of both countries for cross-border settlements, further promoting and facilitating bilateral trade and investment, the statement said.