During an informal plenary session on the humanitarian situation convened by the General Assembly, the WHO chief regretted that around 11,500 Gazans had been murdered, 70 percent of them women and children.
With 1.7 million displaced; two-thirds of Gaza’s hospitals are out of service; no electricity, no fuel, no drinking water, no food; with every bomb that kills or maims a child; With every family buried under rubble, Israel’s response appears increasingly unjustified, he said.
For his part, Martin Griffiths, emergency relief coordinator, described the scenario as an intolerable humanitarian crisis in all respects.
In many ways, he said, international humanitarian law appears to have reached a turning point.
Griffiths stressed the need for an indefinite ceasefire to “allow for an unhindered humanitarian response and give the people of Gaza respite from the terrible things that have happened.”
In this context, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that there was simply not enough food, water and fuel to sustain life in the enclave.
Natalie Boucly, deputy commissioner general, said the agency’s work had become a “mission impossible.”
The Israeli authorities are demanding that humanitarian workers are complicit in the displacement of the population, and we cannot fully protect people in United Nations facilities, he stressed.
“We cannot reach people in need, including thousands still stuck in the north, and we cannot provide enough assistance to those we can,” Boucly added.
With fuel reserves almost completely exhausted, UNRWA’s ability to function and fulfill its mandate is at risk.
Meanwhile, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, rejected the violations of international humanitarian law and the war crimes committed.
Security Council Resolution 2712, adopted on Wednesday, calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors across the Gaza Strip, among other key demands on the parties, the senior official recalled.
These repeated calls from the global community cannot be ignored; For humanitarian and human rights reasons, there must be a ceasefire, also to create a way out of this horror, he emphasized.
Ode/ebr