AMN
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza. The resolution calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access. The resolution was passed with 13 votes in favour while the United States and Russia abstained from the voting.
Earlier, the head of the World Health Organisation Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued dire warnings about the risk of insufficient food in Gaza. UN’s World Food Programme has also warned that Gaza is at risk of famine if the war continues.
Facing death every single day: Palestine
Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the Observer State of Palestine, said that the Security Council first met to address the crisis when hundreds of Palestinians had been killed by Israel.
UN Photo/Manuel Elías Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.
“The Council is now meeting after over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, almost half of them children and 60,000 wounded, and two million Palestinians have been forcefully displaced,” he said, adding that it is meeting now as homes, shelters, schools and hospitals have been destroyed, and as hunger and disease are spreading “like wildfire”.
He stated that the Arab and Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) groups, with support of an overwhelming number of UN Member States had been mobilizing for three objectives, an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian assistance at scale, and no forced displacement.
“We meet today as part of the continuous efforts to advance these goals,” he said, noting that the “inhumane and criminal Israeli siege” and the use of vital humanitarian “as a method of war” must end immediately.
“What we are dealing with is an attempt at the destruction of our people and their displacement forever from their land,” he said, adding “this is Israel’s goal, its true objective, no future for Palestinians in Palestine.”
“That is why it is bombing everyone and everything,” he said.
Noting that “death is everywhere” in Gaza, Mr. Mansour said that the resolution is intended to alleviate the suffering of civilians. He welcomed the provision to establish a UN mechanism to accelerate the provision of humanitarian relief consignments and call for its rapid implementation.
“This resolution is a step in the right direction. It must be implemented and must be accompanied by massive pressure for an immediate ceasefire,” he added.