Gaza: UN Warns Escalation Risks Starvation, Mass Displacement, & Unprecedented Human Suffering | UN

Описание: UN top humanitarian Ramesh Rajasingham is “extremely” concerned over the prolonged conflict and further human toll that is likely to unfold following the Government of Israel’s decision to expand military operations in Gaza.

“This marks a grave escalation in a conflict that has already inflicted unimaginable suffering,” Rajasingham said.

He continued, “Given the scale of repeated displacement and current living conditions, preventing the entry of emergency shelter supplies defies the obligation to allow humanitarian relief for the population in need.”

“The health system effectively is collapsed. Hospitals are not protected, doctors have been killed or detained, and facilities are working without sufficient medical supplies. Water and sanitation infrastructure already at the critical failing point before the crisis at almost completely failing and social cohesion is unraveling.” Rajasingham added.

He asked, “How are the people in Gaza expected to survive in these conditions?”

The senior OCHA official stressed, “States – all those with any influence – must look within our bruised collective conscience and summon the courage to do what is necessary to end this inhumanity and pain. It is also what international law demands.”

Acting United States Representative Dorothy Shea told the Council that her government believes that today’s meeting is “emblematic of the counterproductive role that far too many governments on this Council and throughout the UN system have played on this issue."

Shea said, “Remarkably, instead of pressuring Hamas, members of this body have encouraged and rewarded its intransigence, actively prolonging the war by spreading lies about Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and the United States, and by handing propaganda victories to terrorists.”

“It is unfortunate that members have again taken advantage of today’s meeting to accuse Israel of genocide,” the US Representative said, explaining that “these accusations are politically motivated and categorically false.”

“They are part of a deliberate, cynical propaganda campaign as Hamas attempts to win symbolic victories to compensate for total defeat in war. The United States refutes these allegations entirely,” Shea stressed.

For his part, Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy criticized the United States, saying that it “quite simply is washing its hand and is giving West Jerusalem carte blanche to have full freedom of action in Gaza.”

Palestinian Riyad Mansour asked the Council, “How on earth is Israel still allowed to sit around this table and in this United Nations?”

“If it was another country, you would have been imposing sanctions a long time ago,” Ambassador Mansour said.
He continued, “The position of Palestine is unequivocal. We reject all harm to civilians, and our civilians are not less civilians. Their lives are not less worthy.”

Ambassador Mansour added, “We have never justified and always rejected harming Israeli civilians, killing them or taking them hostage. But we reject any attempt to justify the massacres committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians, or its abduction of thousands of Palestinians, or its starvation policy or its displacement policy, or its annexation policy.”

Israeli Ambassador Jonathan Miller told the Council, “the IDF is preparing to take control of Gaza City, while ensuring humanitarian assistance flows to civilians outside combat zones and away from the reach of Hamas.”

“This is not conquest. Israel has no plans or desire to permanently occupy Gaza. This is liberation from a brutal terror regime,” he emphasized.

The Israeli diplomat criticized the Security Council , “in a complete inversion of morality and logic, this body has urgently convened to chastise the one democracy in the Middle East, the nation standing on the frontline of the battle against radical extremist terrorism.”

“If this body truly believes in justice and morality, then let your urgency be directed where it belongs, towards dismantling Hamas, towards freeing our hostages, toward ensuring that such atrocities never happen again,” He said.

“Anything less is not urgency. It is hypocrisy,” Miller said.

Earlier today, Slovenian Ambassador Samuel Žbogar held a joint press encounter with the representatives from the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Greece.

Speaking on behalf of the E5 countries, Ambassador Žbogar condemned the government of Israel's decision to further expand its military operations in Gaza. “This plan risks violating international humanitarian law,” he added.

The E5 countries called on Israel to “urgently reverse this decision and not to implement it.”


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