“The situation in Gaza has reached a dangerous low,” Antonio Guterres told reporters, describing a “health system on the verge of collapse”
The Secretary-General was also concerned about the risk of hostilities spilling over into the region.
UNITED NATIONS: “Even wars have rules”, launched the UN Secretary-General on Friday before a Security Council on the situation in Israel and Gaza, demanding “immediate” humanitarian access to the Palestinian enclave in state seat.
“The situation in Gaza has reached a dangerous low,” Antonio Guterres told reporters, describing a “health system on the verge of collapse,” “overflowing morgues” and “a water crisis.” in the Palestinian enclave under siege.
“After days of airstrikes, Israeli armed forces ordered Palestinians in and around Gaza City to move to the south of the territory,” he noted.
“Moving more than a million people across a densely populated war zone to an area without food, water or shelter, while the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous, and sometimes simply impossible,” he insisted.
A little earlier, his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric had repeated the UN’s call to “cancel” this evacuation order, noting that Antonio Guterres was “in constant contact” with the Israeli authorities “to call on them to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.
“It’s been six days that nothing has come in. One of my colleagues from UNRWA (UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees) told me on the phone that he hadn’t seen a drop of water coming for six days. We almost hit rock bottom,” said Stéphane Dujarric.
Asked about the 24-hour delay, while the Israeli army noted that the evacuation would “take time”, Stéphane Dujarric said he could simply relay what had been said to the UN. “Time is running out,” he insisted.
“We need immediate humanitarian access throughout the Gaza Strip, to bring fuel, food, and water to all those who need it,” insisted Antonio Guterres. “Even wars have rules.”
MASS EVACUATION FROM NORTHERN GAZA WOULD BE ‘CATASTROPHIC’: WHO
A mass evacuation from northern Gaza would be “catastrophic” for hospital patients, with hospitals in the south already at full capacity, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated on Friday.
“A mass evacuation would be catastrophic for patients, health personnel, and other civilians left behind or caught up in the mass movement,” the WHO said in a statement.
Importantly, the Health Ministry’s four hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip have already reached or exceeded their capacity, and do not have the intensive care capacity and supplies needed to treat the additional patients, argued the WHO.
“International humanitarian and human rights law must be respected and applied; civilians must be protected and must not be used as shields,” he added, once again calling for the immediate release of “all hostages” held by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which launched an attack of unprecedented scale in Israel on Saturday.
The Secretary-General was also concerned about the risk of hostilities spilling over into the region.
“I am in constant contact with the region’s leaders, to find ways to reduce suffering and prevent further dangerous escalation in the West Bank and elsewhere in the region, particularly in southern Lebanon,” he said, stressing that the “very worrying” exchanges of fire on both sides of the blue line which separates Lebanon from Israel “must stop”.
He also denounced “the hatred fueled by this terrible conflict, in the Middle East and across the world”, calling for combating “anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate speech of all kinds”.
