The “catastrophe” caused by the war between Israel and Hamas “makes the need for a humanitarian ceasefire more urgent with every hour,” the U.N. secretary general pleaded on Monday, describing Gaza as “a cemetery for children.”
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“The parties to the conflict and the international community face an immediate and fundamental responsibility: to put an end to this inhumane collective suffering and to radically increase humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” Antonio Guterres told reporters.
“The nightmare in Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis, it is a crisis of humanity,” he commented, while reiterating his condemnation of Hamas’s “heinous terrorist attacks” on October 7.
“Gaza is becoming a cemetery for children,” he emphasized. Devastating Israeli bombings have killed 10,022 people, mostly civilians, including more than 4,000 children, in the Gaza Strip since October 7, according to the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health on Monday.
“More journalists were killed in a four-week period than in any other conflict in the last three decades,” Antonio Guterres added, while the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) counted at least 36 journalists and staff on Monday. Media (31 Palestinians, 4 Israelis, 1 Lebanese) killed since October 7th.
And “more UN humanitarian staff have been killed than in any comparable period in the history of our organization,” lamented the Secretary-General, paying tribute to the 89 killed members of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
According to Israeli authorities, more than 1,400 people died in Israel on October 7, mostly civilians.
The UN chief also criticized Hamas and other groups that “use civilians as human shields and continue to indiscriminately fire rockets into Israel.”
He also stressed that humanitarian aid heading into the besieged Gaza Strip via Rafah, a border crossing with Egypt, was insufficient.
With 400 trucks in two weeks, compared to 500 that went to the enclave every day before the war, “the drop of aid is nothing in the face of the ocean of need,” he stressed, deploring the lack of fuel in this aid.
“Without fuel, newborns die in incubators and patients die on ventilators. Water cannot be pumped or purified. “Sewage could soon flood the streets and spread disease,” the Secretary-General added, recalling that the United Nations has just launched a $1.2 billion appeal to help 2.7 million people (the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 Western residents Bank).