UN calls for humanitarian corridor into Gaza
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The United Nations continues to call for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza as contacts continue with parties including Egypt over the use of its Rafah crossing.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier thanked Cairo for its constructive engagement to facilitate humanitarian access to a region that remains under an Israeli siege that’s preventing civilians from leaving the devastated enclave while blocking food, water, fuel and medical supplies into the Hamas-controlled territory.
Reports from the region also indicate that Egypt’s Foreign Ministry has called on Israel to stop attacking the Palestinian side of the border to enable the crossing to reopen.
As the death toll continues to climb on both sides of Israel’s border with Gaza, 1300 Israelis and foreign citizens, 1200 Palestinians and thousands more injured, with Israel’s bombing retribution of the enclave leaving large parts of Gaza in rubble and ruin and in desperate need of outside intervention.
With Egypt now calling on countries and aid organisations to use the nearby Al Arish airport as a transit point for humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says, “All 13 hospitals and other health facilities in Gaza are only partially operational due to supply shortages and fuel rationing. The Beit Hanoun hospital is also inaccessible due to damage to the surrounding area. With water supplies cut off from Israel into Gaza, there is a severe shortage of drinking water impacting 650 000 people. Also, Israeli airstrikes have damaged seven facilities that had been providing water and sanitation services to over a million people. In some areas, sewage and solid waste are now accumulating in the streets, posing an obvious severe health hazard.”
Almost 340 000 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza, an increase of 80 000 in just the last 24 hours, with scores of Israelis and some foreign citizens held as hostages by Hamas.
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Israel has indicated that there would be no exceptions to its siege until those being held are freed.
And after Occupying State cut off electricity supplies to the area followed by the shutdown of the Gaza Electricity Power Plant Wednesday after running out of fuel, basic life in Gaza has become a living nightmare.
Palestine’s envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour says, “The situation is extremely horrific against our civilian population, that destruction is beyond imaginations, as you see and you cover this situation and the story with your own, you know, cameras. So, the whole world is seeing that catastrophe that is befalling on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. We will continue the contact with everyone, including the Security Council, so that the international community to shoulder its responsibility in stepping to the picture and in putting an end to this onslaught against our people. But more importantly, that would require – of course – sending humanitarian assistance to the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip.”
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Israeli officials are clear that they are determined to exact revenge for the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against its people through a military posture that will do little to address the broader divisions that have defined this decades-long conflict with Palestinians.
The Arab League’s Envoy to the UN, Majed Abdulfattah Abdulaziz says, “If Israel believes that military action is going to settle the Palestinian question, they’re wrong. It could have happened in 2006, with the attack on Lebanon, 2008, 2014. Many other times that attacks have happened, and it led to no results. The Palestinians are adamant, and the Palestinian question and Palestinian issue remains a central issue for the League of Arab States and for all the Arab countries, despite everything that is happening, whether it is Abraham Accords, whether it is any other developments in the political track.”
The United States has also since indicated that its actively in talks with Israel and Egypt in support of the safe passage for civilians out of Gaza amid speculation that an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza is imminent.
