UN Secretary-General visits Rafah crossing point and says any Israeli attack will lead to humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza
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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that there is a clear international consensus that any ground attack on the city of Rafah in Gaza would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and called for a humanitarian ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday that there is a clear international consensus that any ground attack on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza would cause a humanitarian catastrophe, UNN reports.
It is very dangerous to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza. In addition, law and order has been completely broken, which means that we have seen several situations where distribution has turned violent, as well as situations where people have been bombed while distributing. This raises a fundamental question: it is impossible to effectively distribute aid in Gaza without a humanitarian ceasefire.
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The UN Secretary-General also noted that there are currently a number of obstacles from the Israeli authorities, which complicates the delivery of aid.
The problem is not how many trucks are coming in, the problem is how we can distribute even the trucks that are coming in in the chaotic situation that has been created in Gaza."
He also stated that there was a clear consensus that any attack on Rafah in Gaza would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe, and called for a humanitarian ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
The consensus expressed by the United States, the consensus expressed by the European Union, the United Nations, the international community as a whole, is that ground intervention in Rafah with the characteristics that we all know would be a humanitarian disaster. So I think it's time to make sure that what we've been talking about from the beginning, a humanitarian ceasefire, takes place. At the same time, it's time to release the hostages, and it's time to create hope for the Palestinian people that there will be a Palestinian state."
He made these remarks during a press conference at Egypt's Al-Arish airport near the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.
During his visit to the Rafah checkpoint, Antonio Guterres also said that the line of trucks with humanitarian aid was a "moral insult.
Here, from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. The long line of blocked aid trucks on one side of the gate, the long shadow of starvation on the other. This is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage.
The UN will continue to work with Egypt to "streamline" the flow of aid to Gaza, he said in comments made in front of the Rafah crossing, the point of entry for aid.
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Israel, in turn, is concerned that the Palestinian militant group Hamas will turn away aid. Therefore, they have closed all their land crossings into the enclave, except for one - Kerem Shalom near Rafah. Israel has also denied accusations by Egypt and UN humanitarian agencies that it has delayed the delivery of humanitarian aid, saying the UN has not distributed aid in Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz criticized Guterres in a social media post for accusing Israel of "not condemning Hamas-ISIS terrorists who steal humanitarian aid in any way.
Recall
Fighting continued in Gaza on Saturday around the enclaves' main hospital, where Israel said it killed more than 170 armed men in a large-scale raid that the Palestinian Health Ministry said also killed five patients.
As hopes for a truce in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan faded and the humanitarian situation became even more desperate, the United States and other countries tried to use airborne troops and ships to deliver aid.
But humanitarians say that only about one-fifth of the necessary supplies are reaching Gaza, and that the only way to meet the needs is to quickly speed up the delivery by road.
This week, the Global Food Monitor warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza and could spread to other parts of the territory if a ceasefire is not agreed upon.
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