António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, on Saturday renewed his call for an instantaneous humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, using a visit to the border crossing in Egypt to quell the “continuing nightmare” faced by Palestinians in the territory.
“I want Palestinians in Gaza to know: you are not alone,” Guterres said. “People around the world are outraged by the horrors we are all witnessing in real time. I carry the voices of the vast majority of the world: we have seen enough. We’ve heard enough.
Guterres spoke to reporters from the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, one of two main land corridors used to transport desperately needed humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. More than five months after Israel’s war with Hamas began, Palestinians in Gaza face widespread hunger and poverty despite massive international humanitarian aid.
For months, aid organizations have struggled to transport and distribute enough food and other supplies in Gaza, which is facing a blockade enforced jointly by Egypt and Israel.
U.N. officials say obstacles include lengthy Israeli security inspections, attacks on aid convoys by desperate Palestinians and organized gangs, and roads badly damaged by months of airstrikes and fighting. Israel blames UN staff and logistics for the delays and says it places no limits on the amount of aid that can reach Gaza.
Deteriorating conditions this week led the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global body that has been classifying food security crises for decades, to predict that famine is “imminent” for 300,000 Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza. Aid groups and U.N. officials argued that it would be better if Israel eased entry restrictions for trucks at established border crossings into the enclave and did more to speed up the delivery of goods to Gaza.
“At this crossing we see the heartbreak and callousness of it all: a long line of blocked red aid trucks on one side of the gate, the long shadow of hunger on the other,” Guterres said. “It’s more than a tragedy – it’s a moral scandal.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to Mr. Guterres entry on X, an internet site formerly often known as Twitter. Katz criticized the secretary general for suggesting that Israel was responsible for the humanitarian situation in Gaza without condemning Hamas and the United Nations for his or her role and for doing so “without calling for the immediate, unconditional release of all Israeli hostages.”
Mr. Guterres’ visit to the border got here a day after a draft U.N. Security Council resolution, backed by the United States and calling for an “immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza,” did not pass when Russia, China and Algeria voted against it on the council meeting in New York.
The resolution, containing Washington’s harshest language because the starting of the war, was criticized by those that opposed it and by others for failing to demand a everlasting end to the war. Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, condemned the US-backed solution ahead of the vote, calling it a “hypocritical initiative” that didn’t do enough “to save Palestinian lives.”
In recent weeks, Israel and Hamas have held indirect talks – through Qatar and Egypt – to try to achieve a ceasefire agreement. The proposal would also include the discharge of no less than a number of the greater than 100 remaining hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, based on Israeli officials.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after a surprise Hamas-led attack on October 7 that killed greater than 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and took greater than 250 people hostage, based on Israeli officials. Five months later, greater than 32,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza and enormous areas of the enclave have been razed to the bottom, based on Gaza’s health ministry.
Israeli leaders have vowed to send ground troops to Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where about 1,000,000 Palestinians have sought refuge from the fighting. expressed President Biden The White House said it was “deeply concerned” in regards to the large Israeli operation in Rafah during a telephone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Friday that the attack on Rafah risks “further isolating Israel around the world.”
Israel says the operation is mandatory to root out remaining Hamas fighters in the town. Netanyahu vowed on Friday that Israel would invade Rafah no matter whether the United States supported the choice. “I hope we will do this with the support of the United States,” Netanyahu told Mr. Blinken, based on the Israeli prime minister’s office. “But if we have to, we will do it ourselves.”
Netanyahu said Israel would attempt to evacuate civilians from the fighting areas. But U.N. officials equivalent to Mr. Guterres warned that a possible offensive could still have dire consequences.
“Any further attack will make the situation even worse,” Guterres said. “Worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for the hostages and worse for all the inhabitants of the region.”
