The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said the number of those wounded in the marches of major return and breaking the siege exceeded the number of those wounded in the 2014 war.

“The world does not really recognize what has happened in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Return Marches on March 30,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl said.

“I visited hospitals in Gaza and the visit was very shocking and moving,” he added.

Krähenbühl pointed out that he was shocked not only by the figures of injuries but by their nature as well, explaining that, through his examination of patients, it was revealed that the Israeli occupation forces used live ammunition to inflict significant damage to the internal organs and bones of the protesters, and deliberately fired on the upper limbs of the demonstrators’ bodies to cause disabilities.

He noticed that the number of the injured in the Return Marches (13 thousand wounded) was more than those injured during the last aggression on Gaza in 2014.

The UNRWA Commissioner made an urgent appeal to the world to save the health sector in Gaza, saying: “Gaza’s dehumanization will not bring peace to the region.” He warned, “Gaza is facing a major humanitarian and health disaster that will have great repercussions and endless consequences on the Palestinian society.”

Krähenbühl said that 70 percent of the Gaza Strip population were refuges and that a number of them were martyred and others injured during the Return Marches; he listed the number of UNRWA school students who fell in those marches.

He stressed that the budget of UNRWA was still suffering a deficit of nearly 200 million dollars and reaffirmed that the priority was for education and that there would be work during the coming period to curb this deficit.