Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 11th Nov. UN Security Council on Friday met again to discuss the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis as negotiations continue behind the scenes to reach some consensus position over the ongoing war in Gaza.
WHO chief Tedros said that the entire health system of Gaza city was now on its knees.
Marwan Jilani, Director General of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, provided an overview of recent events, noted that he had to rewrite his statement several times as the situation is “changing by the minute”.
He warned that people are getting shot at “as we speak”, with 20 injured due to direct fire at the Al Quds hospital in Gaza City. Thousands are under imminent threat of being killed.
He said there were 14,000 displaced civilians at Al Quds, with the main generator shut off due to lack of fuel. Now there is “serious risk” that all intensive care patients and babies on incubators, could die.
He said diseases were beginning to spread.
Mr. Jilani said 36 members of one senior medic’s family had been killed. The description of mass death, could not do justice to the horrors and trauma of sleeping under the “terrorizing bombardment”, he said, calling for fuel to be urgently allowed into the Gaza Strip.
He said many would starve or die of disease with fuel. He called on the Council to demand an effective and immediate ceasefire, together with emergency aid for the north of Gaza.
“Listen to the cries of children soaked in blood”, he said, who are wondering why the world is so indifferent to their lives.
WHO head Tedros said having lived through war as a child and a parent, he well understood the suffering and horror being experienced in Gaza today.
He said the UN does not serve the purpose for which it was established and not for the 21st century, added that “to remain credible, relevant and a force for peace in our world, Member States…must take seriously the need to reform the Security Council.”
Tedros said the best way to support them is providing what health workers need to save lives. About 63 tonnes of such aid has been sent, but unfettered access is needed to reach the civilians, who are not responsible for the crisis.
He stated an average of 500 trucks per day crossed into Gaza with essential supplies. Since 21 October only 650 aid trucks have entered Gaza.
WHO called for a ceasefire, he added.
Tedros called on Hamas to release the hostages and on Israel to restore supplies of water, electricity and especially fuel.
He called for both sides to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law.
“I understand what the children of Gaza must be going through because as a child, I went through the same,” he said, recalling the sounds of tracer bullets, gunfire and “the smell and images” of war. “I know what war means.”
Israeli and Palestinian children and families want peace and security, Tedros emphasized.
He said that the situation on the ground in Gaza is grim from hospitals conducting operations without anaesthetics to the fact that a child is killed every ten minutes.
“Nowhere and no one is safe,” he said, adding that medical staff are grappling to try to manage the health needs of 2.3 million people.
There have been over 250 attacks on health centres in Gaza and 25 in Israel since October 7.
Over 100 UN colleagues have been killed. Half of Gaza’s hospitals are not functioning at all, and the remaining are operation way beyond their capacities.
“The health system is on its knees,” he said.
Tedros said he fully understood the anger and grief of the Israeli people after the “barbaric” Hamas attacks. The killing of 1,400 was “incomprehensible” he added.
He noted the mental health consequences for survivors would continue for a long time.
Tedros said he was gravely concerned for the hostages still being held.
He said he would meet with more families next week in Geneva.
He said he also understood the anger, grief and fear of the people of Gaza, suffering “the destruction of their families, their homes, their communities and the life they knew.”
China’s ambassador called the 9472nd meeting of the Council to order.
The Council members held a minute of silence for all those who lost their lives in Israel due to the 7 October attacks and all those Palestinian civilians who have died during the fighting.
United Arab Emirates called for the meeting, cited “the spiraling health crisis amidst continued attacks on hospitals.”
This will be the seventh time that the Council has convened on the current crisis since 7 October.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told journalists in New York that “We keep hoping and yearning for a united message from the Security Council to see an end to the conflict in Gaza; it hasn’t happened.”
Council had met privately to discuss the matter and the General Assembly has resumed its tenth emergency session on the crisis.
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