The UN have warned the Israel government of committing war crimes, calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough” UN Chief António Guterres said. He warned today that time is running out to save genocide and a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. They expressed extreme anger with Israel for not stopping its plans to completely destroy the besieged Gaza strip.”
Israel steps up its assault in Gaza, claiming to have bifurcated the Gaza Strip into two halves as they encircle the Hamas controlled Gaza City. The situation has worsened as Israel shows no signs of stopping.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that significant strikes have been carried out and the Gaza Strip has been ‘cut into two’. He claimed that now a “North” Gaza and a “South” Gaza exist.
Israel has made it clear to end the war with the end of Hamas.
UN speaks its concerns
The United Nations have declared, “The situation in Gaza has reached a catastrophic tipping point,” pointing out the impending health risks and the urgent need for food, water, medicine, fuel, and other necessities.
The experts stated, “We remain convinced that there is a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people.” “Now is the moment to take action. In order to stop this disastrous trajectory, Israel’s allies also have responsibility and need to take immediate action, they warned.
The experts warned, citing images of people frantically grabbing flour and other necessities from a United Nations warehouse, disturbing reports of children being forced to drink sea water as there is no clean water, distressing accounts of patients, including children, undergoing surgery without anesthesia, and elderly and disabled people who are displaced and living in tents because their homes have been reduced to rubble.
“All signs are that we have reached a breaking point,” the experts said.
According to the experts, Gaza’s population no longer has access to clean drinking water because of the lack of fuel and the interruption of water infrastructure caused by continuous shelling that has been going on for the past month.
“2 million Gazans are struggling to find drinking water today, and water is essential to human life,” they stated.
“Everybody involved needs to honor their commitments under international humanitarian law and human rights legislation. In order to guarantee that help reaches those who need it most, we seek a humanitarian ceasefire. In order to guarantee the release of hostages, communication lines can also be opened during a truce.”
“Decades of hardship and deprivation have befallen the Palestinian people in Gaza, especially women, children, youth, persons with disabilities, and older individuals,” the experts stated. We demand that Israel and its allies consent to an instant cease-fire. Time is running out for us.”
The experts firmly backed the United Nations Secretary General’s initiatives to open up the Gaza Strip to humanitarian aid.
150 United Nations Relief and Works Agency emergency shelters are home to about 629,000 of the estimated 1.4 million internally displaced individuals in Gaza.
According to United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the Israeli shelling of Gaza has claimed the lives of seventy of its employees.
The Ongoing Catastrophe that the UN fears
In Gaza, all internet and communication services were suspended on Sunday for the third time since the start of the conflict. The “collapse in connectivity” was reported by the internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmed by the Palestinian telecom operator Paltel. In Gaza, the first communication outage lasted for thirty-six hours, while the second one lasted for several hours.
Israel declared that its troops had successfully encircled Gaza City, rejecting once more the growing international requests for a cease-fire. This happened simultaneously with Blinken’s efforts to control the situation that could worsen in Lebanon, a neighboring country.
As part of his diplomatic efforts amidst the current conflict, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the occupied West Bank on Sunday. He attempted to reassure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting that the Biden administration was stepping up its efforts to improve the situation for Gaza’s civilian population.
Additionally, he reaffirmed his position that the Palestinians ought to be the primary decision-makers regarding what happens to their land after the conflict.
Israel is not stopping at all
Israeli airplanes attacked two refugee camps in central Gaza earlier on Sunday, resulting in at least 53 fatalities and several injuries. Israeli military officials had advised Palestinian civilians to seek shelter in this area. Ignoring US appeals for even brief pauses to deliver aid to needy civilians, Israel declared it will continue its offensive to destroy Hamas.
Despite US pleas for even short pauses to deliver supplies to desperate civilians, Israel said that it would continue its offensive to destroy Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said earlier today that his country will not consent to a ceasefire until the Hamas free the captives it is currently holding. This information was reported by The Times of Israel. “Take away the word ‘ceasefire’ from the lexicon. We have no choice but to keep going until we defeat them,” Netanyahu is cited as saying in a statement released by his office.
What is the role of Neighboring Countries?
Hezbollah declared that it would never accept attacks on civilians and that its response will be “firm and strong” following the deaths of three children and their grandmother on Sunday due to an Israeli strike on a car in south Lebanon.
According to Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, “the enemy will pay the price for its crimes against civilians,” as reported by Reuters. Hezbollah claimed to have retaliated against the Israeli airstrike, which resulted in the deaths of three girls, ages ten to fourteen, in an attack it carried out.
Early on Monday, Jordan’s king and official media posted on social media that the country’s air force troops had air-dropped vital medical supplies to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza. According to Jordan’s state news agency, which cited a military source in the General Command of the Jordanian Armed Forces, “a royal air force plane dropped urgent medical aid using parachutes to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza whose supplies were about to run out due to the delay of delivering aid through Rafah crossing.”
Major protests greeted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s first visit to Turkey since the war, he is scheduled to undertake tough talks there on Monday. Just hours before Blinken’s arrival on Sunday, hundreds of protesters marched on an air facility in southeast Turkey that houses US military. Police deployed tear gas and water cannon to scatter the demonstrators. Blinken’s goal in holding this discussion is to allay the fury of one of Washington’s most important, if persistent, partners regarding the devastation in Gaza.
About 10,000 Palestinians have died in the territory in almost a month of fighting, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, with over 4,000 of them being children. The death toll is probably going to go up as Israeli forces go deeper into populated neighborhoods.