\n United Nations relief chief Tom Fletcher on Tuesday called on the UN Security Council to take action \"to prevent genocide\" in Gaza, delivering a scathing account of Israel's actions in the Palestinian territory.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, demanded that Israel lift its aid blockade on Gaza, where its offensive has killed tens of thousands and reduced much of the enclave to rubble.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"For those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now?\" asked Fletcher. \"Will you act -- decisively -- to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?\"\n<\/p>\n
\n He alleged that Israel was \"deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Fletcher said UN agencies had \"life-saving supplies\" ready to deliver at the borders but were denied access by Israel. He also decried Israel's conditions for allowing aid delivery as \"a cynical sideshow.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It makes starvation a bargaining chip,\" Fletcher said. \"A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement. If any of this still matters, have no part in it.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The UN relief chief warned that while the International Court of Justice deliberated over whether Israel's actions in Gaza constituted genocide, \"it will be too late.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have briefed this Council in great detail on the extensive civilian harm we witness daily: death, injury, destruction, hunger, disease, torture, other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, repeated displacement, on a large scale.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have described the deliberate obstruction of aid operations and the systematic dismantling of Palestinian life, and that which sustains it, in Gaza,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Tuesday, Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, with rescue officials saying an attack near a hospital in the south of the territory killed at least 28 people.\n<\/p>\n
\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced his military would enter Gaza \"with full force\" in the coming days, after recommencing operations having broken a tenuous ceasefire two months ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n The war began in October 2023 after a Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.\n<\/p>\n
\n Israel launched a withering offensive in response, killing at least 52,908 people -- mostly civilians -- according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry, which is considered reliable by the UN.\n<\/p>\n
\n It has also targeted civilian infrastructure, destroying roads, schools, hospitals and residential neighborhoods, alleging that Hamas was using them as cover.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I can tell you from having visited what's left of Gaza's medical system that death on this scale has a sound and a smell that does not leave you,\" said Fletcher.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"As one nurse described it: 'children scream as we peel burnt fabric from their skin.'\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The senior official charged that the UN Security Council was not doing enough to prevent the violence.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"For those who will not survive what we fear is coming -- in plain sight -- it will be no consolation to know that future generations will hold us in this chamber to account,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"But they will. And, if we have not seriously done 'all we could,' we should fear that judgment.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United Nations relief chief Tom Fletcher on Tuesday called on the UN Security Council to take action \"to prevent genocide\" in Gaza, delivering a scathing account of Israel's actions in the Palestinian territory. Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, demanded that Israel lift its aid blockade on Gaza, where its offensive has killed tens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-145299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n