The UN chief stressed the need to protect the Palestinian civilian population and be able to receive humanitarian aid.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, voiced on Wednesday his profound concern over the suffering of the Palestinian population in northern Gaza in view of the ongoing deadly Israeli military operation and siege of the area.
“People suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in North Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival,” Guterres wrote in a post on X.
The secretary-general stressed the need to protect the Palestinian population.
“Civilians must be protected & must be able to receive humanitarian assistance,” he added, accentuating that this is the core of humanitarian law.
The UN chief has expressed his concern in an earlier post on his X account regarding the delay in the polio vaccination campaign in the north of Gaza due to Israel’s military operation.
People suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in North Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.
Civilians must be protected & must be able to receive humanitarian assistance.
That’s what international humanitarian law requires.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 23, 2024
“I am very concerned about the postponement of the latest phase of the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza as a result of escalating and lack of access,” he stated.
Guterres emphasized that the polio outbreak must stop “before more children are paralyzed and poliovirus spreads further.”
UNRWA Requests Access to North
The United Nations for Refugees and Works Agency (UNRWA) urged the Israeli occupation authorities on Monday to allow its team access to the north of Gaza to conduct “lifesaving operations” amidst a deadly Israeli military campaign for over two weeks leaving Palestinians with no medicine, water or food.
The UN organization reiterated in a post on X the urgent request by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to the Israeli occupation authorities “to allow access in order to carry out lifesaving rescue operations in (northern) Gaza, including the recovery of people trapped under rubble.”
UNRWA detailed in another post the health situation in the north of Gaza stating that none of UNRWA’s medical points are operational, nonetheless, its teams are ready but in desperate need of medical supplies to be able to provide care.
It added that patients in the ICU have died following power cuts due to Israeli strikes on hospital facilities, stressing that the Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals are operating at minimum capacity due to an acute shortage of medical supplies and staff.
Since Friday, we’ve been asking the Israeli authorities to urgently facilitate our access to North #Gaza, to support rescuing dozens trapped under rubble.
⚠️ Every minute counts.
Previously, delayed approvals resulted in rescue teams only recovering dead bodies. #AccessDenied pic.twitter.com/V8hFp2FRXu
— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) October 20, 2024
Deadly Military Operation
The Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza announced that over 600 people have been killed since the beginning of the latest Israeli military offensive in the north of the Strip over two weeks ago, Anadolu news agency said.
“The bodies of dozens of dead people are still under the rubble and on the streets as civil defense teams can’t reach them,” the Palestinian Civil Defense Spokesman Mahmoud Basal told Anadolu.
A health ministry official in Gaza stressed on October 19 that the exact number of casualties is impossible to determine in the north of Gaza.
“The figures are alarming, and the ones we report are only those we manage to recover,” he said, noting that the three hospitals in northern Gaza are now out of service after being targeted by Israeli forces.
The official confirmed that the current conditions in northern Gaza are more dire than in the early days of the war. “We are receiving distress calls about the occupation forces executing civilians they have detained in northern Gaza,” he added.
On the 18th day of the suffocating Israeli siege on the north of Gaza, scenes of death and destruction remain to emerge from the stricken area.
The bombardments have destroyed homes, shelters, and entire residential neighborhoods while blocking the entry of food, water and medicine.
Death Toll on the Rise
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 42,792 Palestinians have been killed, and 100,412 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
