News - Middle East: The United Nations agency for children, UNICEF, warns that the real life-threatening consequences of Israel’s new blockade on the Gaza Strip will be that Palestinian children will die. 

Israel has cut off humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip a day after the first phase of a truce deal with Hamas expired on March 1.  

On Saturday, UNICEF communication specialist and spokesperson Rosalia Bollen warned that the blockade risks undoing much of the work humanitarian organizations have been able to complete during the ceasefire.

“It’s not just the aid that is halted from coming into Gaza, it’s also fuel.”

The coastal territory, she said, doesn’t have access “to sufficient electricity and that means its critical infrastructure – from desalination plants to hospitals – are dependent on the entry of fuel.”

She highlighted the urgent need to “scale up water production [and] fuel is a key element for that.”

Bollen said she saw “a very small baby that was born at 28 weeks,” before the ceasefire took effect in January.  

“That baby died after three weeks because of a lack of ventilators and CPAP machines in that hospital.”

The ceasefire deal allowed a surge of aid into Gaza after more than 15 months of full blockade on the coastal territory. It halted much of Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza and allowed the release of 33 Israeli captives in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees

The Israeli military has been violating the ceasefire agreement almost every day since it took effect on January 19.

On Saturday, Israel's airstrikes targeted displaced Palestinians east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, and killed at least two people.

Since Friday, Rafah has been subjected to Israeli shelling and drone strikes, with reports of bombardment in several residential neighborhoods. 

Source: Press TV