UN Secretary-General António Guterres stood near a long line of waiting trucks Saturday and declared it was time to “truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid," calling the starvation inside the enclave a “moral outrage.” He urged an immediate cease-fire betwe🎀en Israel and Hamas.
Guterres spoke on the Egyptian side of the border not far from the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israel plans to launch a ground assault despite widespread warnings of a potential catastrophe. More than half of Gaza's population has taken🌼 refuge there.
“Any further onslaught will make things even worse — worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for hostages and worse for all people in the region," G🦩uterres said.
He spoke a day after the UN Security Council faile𝐆d to reach consensus on the wording of a U.S.-sponsorℱed resolution supporting “an immediate and sustained cease-fire.”
Guterres repeatedly noted the difficulties of getting aid into Gaz💃a, for which international aid agencies have largely blamed Israel.
“Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessnessꦜ … a long line of blocked relie💧f trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said.
About 7,000 aid trucks are waiting in Egypt's North Sinai province to🦹ꩵ enter Gaza, Gov. Mohammed Abdel-Fadeil Shousha said in a statement.
Guterres added: “It is time for an ironclad commitment by Israel for total … access for 𒁃humanitarian goods to Gaza, and in the Ramadan spirit of compassion, it🔥 is also time for the immediate release of all hostages.” He later told journalists that a humanitarian cease-fire and hostage release should occur at the same time.
Hamas is believed to be holding around 100 hostagඣes as well as the remains of 30 others taken in its October 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and sparked the war.
When asked about Guterres' comments, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to a social media post by Foreign Minister Israel Katz accusing the U.N. chi💙ef of allowing the world🎶 body to become “antisemitic and anti-Israeli.”
An estimated 1.5 million Palestinians no✤w shelter in Rafah after fleeing Israel's offen♛sive elsewhere.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said an Israeli ground assault on Rafah would be “a mistake” and unnecessary in defeating Hamas. That marked a shift in the position for the United States, wh🌳ose officials have concluded there is no credible way for getting civilians out of harm's way.
Netanyahu has vowed to press forward with military-approved plans for the offensive, which he has said is cౠrucial to achieving the stated aim of destroying Hamas. The military has said Rafah is Hamas' last major stronghold and ground forces must target four battalions remaining there.
Again on Saturday night, Israelis protested𝄹 in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem against Netanyahu an🐻d the government amid fears that surviving hostages held in Gaza are in ever-worsening conditions months into the war.
Israel's invasion has killed more than 32,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, while leaving much of the enclave in ruins and displacing some 80% of the enclave's 2.3 million people. Gaza's Health Ministry said Saturday that the bodies🐈 of 72 people killed had been brought to hospitals in the𝔉 past 24 hours.
The Health Ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and 🧔combatants, but has said women🐼 and children make up the majority of the dead. Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths and accuses it of operating within residential areas.
Fighting raged Saturday around Gaza's largest hospital. Israel's military says it has killed more than 170 militants in Shifa hospital since its raid began Monday, and the commanding officer of the Southern Command, Yaron Finkelman,🌊 on Friday said “we will finish this operation only when the last terrorist is in our hands."
Nearby Gaza C꧑ity residents told The Associated Press that Israeli troops had🥂 blown up several residential buildings.
“They♊ are emptying the whole area," said Abdel-Hay Saad, who lives on the western edge of Gaza City's Rimal neighborhood. Another resident, Mohammed al-♛Sheikh, said that intense Israeli bombardment was “hitting anything moving.”
Associated Press footage✨ showed columns of smoke billowing over🔴 the hospital area.
The Health Ministry said five wounded Palestinians trapped at ไShifa had died without food, water, medical services. It previously said Israel's military had detained health workers, patients and relatives inside the complex. The military claimed it wasn't harming civilians, patients or workers.
“These conditions are utterly inhumane,” the World Health Organisation's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on social medi♊a late Friday,
Elsewhere, an older woman and five children were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike on an area between Rafah🍎 and Khan Younis, health authorities sa🌺id.
