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UN Relief Chief Says All-Out War Is ‘Looming Dangerously Close’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A picture taken from Rafah on January 6, 2024 shows smoke billowing over Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment.  (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

“This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end,” said United Nations emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths.

The United Nations’ emergency relief coordinator warned Friday that the threat of a broader conflict in the Middle East is growing rapidly as Israel’s assault continues in Gaza, which the U.N. official said has been rendered “uninhabitable” by near-constant airstrikes and a suffocating blockade.

“The specter of further regional spillover of the war is looming dangerously close,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said in a statement, pointing to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, mounting Israeli attacks in the West Bank, and rocket attacks on Israel. “Hope has never been more elusive.”

Griffiths, a longtime diplomat who has described the situation in Gaza as the worst humanitarian crisis he’s ever witnessed, issued his unsparing statement at the tail end of a week that saw Israel and the United States launch deadly strikes in Lebanon and Iraq, killing a senior Hamas official and the leader of an Iran-aligned militia.

On Saturday, Hezbollah responded to Israel’s drone strike on an office building in the Lebanese capital of Beirut by firing rockets at a military base in northern Israel, heightening fears of an escalatory spiral.

While the Biden administration insists it wants to avert a regional war, it continues to provide Israel with lethal military aid and oppose international efforts to enact a permanent cease-fire that analysts say is necessary to stop the conflict from spreading. The U.S. is also reportedly drafting plans to bomb Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.

The Houthis have said the attacks will stop once Israel ends its catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip.

Griffiths said Friday that the situation in Gaza is shockingly dire, with displaced families “sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet” and the territory’s remaining medical facilities “under relentless attack.”

“The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety,” said Griffiths. “Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner.”

“For children in particular,” Griffiths added, “the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out.”

Much of Gaza has been decimated by Israeli bombs, many of which were supplied by the United States. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Friday that around 68,000 housing units in Gaza have been completely destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

Roughly 4% of Gaza’s population—more than 90,000 people—has been killed, wounded, or left missing by Israeli attacks since October 7, the group estimated.

“It is time for the parties to meet all their obligations under international law, including to protect civilians and meet their essential needs, and to release all hostages immediately,” Griffiths said. “It is time for the international community to use all its influence to make this happen. This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingUN Relief Chief Says All-Out War Is ‘Looming Dangerously Close’

UN Chief Invokes Article 99 to Spur Security Council Action on Gaza

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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres discusses climate change at U.N. headquarters in New York City on July 27, 2023.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres discusses climate change at U.N. headquarters in New York City on July 27, 2023.

“Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe and appeal for a humanitarian cease-fire to be declared.”

With over 16,000 Palestinians dead just two months into Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday demanded immediate action by the U.N. Security Council.

For the first time since becoming secretary-general nearly seven years ago, Guterres invoked Article 99, a rarely used section of the U.N. Charter empowering him to bring to the attention of the council “any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that Guterres was invoking Article 99 “given the scale of the loss of human life in Gaza and Israel, in such a short amount of time.”

“I think it’s arguably the most important invocation,” Dujarric told reporters at U.N. headquarters, “in my opinion, the most powerful tool that he has.”

“The international community has a responsibility to use all its influence to prevent further escalation and end this crisis.”

Guterres wrote to José Javier De la Gasca Lopez Domínguez, the Ecuadorian president of the Security Council, that “more than eight weeks of hostilities in Gaza and Israel have created appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The U.N. chief reaffirmed his condemnation of the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel—in which around 1,200 people were killed and over 200 others were captured—that led to the war. He called accounts of sexual violence “appalling” and stressed that the remaining hostages “must be immediately and unconditionally released.”

He also emphasized that “civilians throughout Gaza face grave danger,” with the Israeli airstrikes and raids damaging more than half of all homes and displacing about 80% of the 2.3 million residents. Over a million of them have sought shelter at U.N. facilities, “creating overcrowded, undignified, and unhygienic conditions,” while others “find themselves on the street.”

“The healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing,” he noted, pointing out that only 14 of 36 hospitals are operating at all. “I expect public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible. An even worse situation could unfold, including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into neighboring countries.”

Already, conditions in Gaza are making “it impossible for meaningful humanitarian operations to be conducted,” Guterres added. “The capacity of the United Nations and its humanitarian partners has been decimated by supply shortages, lack of fuel, interrupted communications, and growing insecurity.”

“The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region. Such an outcome must be avoided at all cost,” the U.N. leader warned. “The international community has a responsibility to use all its influence to prevent further escalation and end this crisis.”

“I urge the members of the Security Council to press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe,” he wrote. “I reiterate my appeal for a humanitarian cease-fire to be declared. This is urgent. The civilian population must be spared from greater harm.”

The United States—a supporter of Israel’s war and one of the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members—vetoed a mid-October resolution condemning violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza and urging “humanitarian pauses” for aid delivery.

Roughly a month later, the Security Council approved a Gaza resolution that calls on all parties to abide by their obligations under international law and advocates for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors.”

Dr. Christos Christou, international president of Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, said at the time that “the unacceptably jumbled and sluggish process finally led to the adoption of a text that does not come close to reflecting the severity of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

Continue ReadingUN Chief Invokes Article 99 to Spur Security Council Action on Gaza

Gaza facing ‘immediate possibility of starvation,’ UN warns

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/gaza-facing-immediate-possibility-of-starvation-un-warns

Palestinians look for survivors after an Israeli air strike destroys a building, November 17, 2023

PEACE campaigners slammed Israeli authorities and world leaders today after the United Nations warned Gaza faced the “immediate possibility of starvation.”

Even before the fast approaching winter Palestinians are already struggling to survive in desperate conditions created by a lack of fuel, which means aid agencies are unable to transport urgently needed food and medical supplies to the besieged people of the territory.

UN World Food Programme (WFP) Mideast regional spokeswoman Abeer Etefa said that, since the beginning of Israel’s retaliation against Hamas’s October 7 uprising, Gaza has received only around 10 per cent of its required food supplies each day. Dehydration and malnutrition are growing as a result, with nearly all residents in need of food.

Speaking from Cairo, Egypt, Ms Etefa said: “Food production has come to an almost complete halt, markets have collapsed, fishermen cannot access the sea, farmers cannot reach their farms.

WFP executive director Cindy McCain said: “With winter rapidly approaching, shelters unsafe and overcrowded and a lack of clean water, civilians face the immediate possibility of starvation.”

…

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/gaza-facing-immediate-possibility-of-starvation-un-warns

Continue ReadingGaza facing ‘immediate possibility of starvation,’ UN warns

Over 420 Palestinian children are killed every day in Israeli war on Gaza, says UNICEF chief

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Original article by peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Israel has intensified its bombings inside the besieged Palestinian territory, repeatedly targeting shelters for the displaced and hospitals which are crowded due to the large number of people injured

United Nations Security Council discusses war in Gaza
United Nations Security Council discusses war in Gaza

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), stated that Israel is carrying out “collective punishment” against Palestinians across the occupied territories and asked the world to ensure that women and children do not become “collateral damage.” 

Lazzarini was speaking at an emergency session of the UN Security Council on Monday, October 30, called by the UAE and China to yet again push for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. 

Addressing the session, Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, said that over 3,400 children had been killed and over 6,300 injured. “This means that more than 420 Palestinian children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day—a number which should shake each of us to our core,” she added.

Israeli forces have been indiscriminately bombing the Gaza strip for the last 25 days. Its forces also launched a ground offensive on Saturday. 

The number of total Palestinians killed so far in the Israeli bombings in Gaza crossed 8,300 on Tuesday morning, with over 20,000 Palestinians injured. According to reports, Israel once again used banned white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza on Monday.  

According to Lazzarini, more than 70% of all those killed are either children or women. He claimed that an “unprecedented human tragedy is unfolding under our watch” in Gaza which is “unbearable.”

He blamed Israel for forcing millions of Palestinians out of their homes which led to overcrowding in UNRWA shelters. Lazzarini claimed that over 67,0000 Palestinians are forcibly displaced and are now living in schools which have been converted into shelters. 

More than half of the population of Gaza, over 1.4 million Palestinians, have been forced out of their homes due to the Israeli offensive since October 7. More and more Palestinians are under threat of losing their homes as Israel continues to target civilian residential areas. 

Lazzarini claimed that over 65 staffers with the UNRWA have been killed in Israeli strikes inside the Gaza strip since October 7. 

Several relief and rescue staff working with other humanitarian missions in the war-affected region have also been killed in the Israeli bombings which have targeted hospitals, schools, aid distribution centers, and even ambulances.   

Israel has also blockaded the supply of food, fuel and medicines into the besieged Palestinian territories since October 9, which has intensified the humanitarian situation there as hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to live without adequate medicines and food. Due to lack of fuel, all essential services such as water supply, cleaning and transportation are blocked, leading to a very dangerous situation. 

“No place is safe in Gaza”  

The handful of aid allowed through the Rafah border is not enough for the over 2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza. Basic necessities such as water, medicine, food and fuel are running out, adding to the panic among the people, Lazzarini said during his presentation to the UN Security Council. 

He claimed that no place is safe from Israeli bombings in the small Palestinian enclave. 

“My UNRWA colleagues are the only glimmer of hope for the entire Gaza strip, a ray of light as humanity sinks into its darkest hour,” Lazzarini stated.  

Lazzarini added that the condition in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem is also getting worse everyday. He claimed that Palestinians fatalities in those territories are already highest since 2005, when the UN started recording them. 

Over 115 Palestinians including 33 children have been killed by the occupation forces in these territories since October 7, Lazzarini said. 

According to the latest figures provided by the Palestinian ministry of health, the total number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem crossed 124 on Tuesday with the Israeli forces shooting of a 70-year-old man in Tubas. 

He claimed that the restrictions imposed on the movement of Palestinians and aid workers in the occupied Palestinian territories are impacting basic services such as education and health care.   

UNICEF head Russell also noted that Gaza has reported 34 attacks on health facilities, including 21 hospitals, due to which 12 of them can no longer function. She underlined that the Israeli bombings have destroyed 221 schools and over 177,000 housing units so far. 

She called for an immediate ceasefire, saying that we need to “put their [children] safety and security at the forefront of our efforts.”

Chinese ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun pointed out that Israel must implement the UN General Assembly resolution passed by over 120 countries on Friday demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. 

Jun claimed that Israel has been holding around 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza under a blockade for over 16 years and asked it to fulfill its responsibilities as the occupying power. Jung warned that if the current war continues, it can spiral out of control and a greater catastrophe would be inevitable.  

Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya also blamed Israel, saying that “despite unambiguous reaction around the world” Israel has begun its plan to clear the Palestinian enclave by launching ground offensive. He noted that because of the US position to shield Israel at any cost, “the council has been paralyzed.” 

Other members of the UN Security Council and the Israeli ambassador also addressed the emergency meeting. Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour claimed that “Gaza is now hell on earth” and underlined that “saving humanity from hell today means the UN to save Palestinians in Gaza.” 

Original article by peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingOver 420 Palestinian children are killed every day in Israeli war on Gaza, says UNICEF chief