UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- In just one week, nearly 400 Palestinians have reportedly been killed and almost 1,500 injured in Gaza, said Joyce Msuya, the UN acting under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, on Wednesday.
Briefing the UN Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Msuya said the people of Gaza have suffered multiple mass casualty incidents due to Israeli airstrikes since her last briefing on Oct. 9.
"The world has seen the images of patients and displaced persons, sheltering near Al Aqsa hospital, burning alive," she said, adding that scores of others, including women and children, are suffering the excruciating pain of severe lifechanging burns.
"If such horror does not awaken our sense of humanity and propel us to action, what will?" Msuya asked.
She said Israel's military offensive is intensifying in the north, and since the beginning of October, it's estimated that over 55,000 people have been displaced from the Jabaliya area, while others remain stranded in their homes with water and food running out.
"For the 155,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza, it is an exhausting and traumatizing experience, not knowing where and how to give birth, or whether their child will survive," said Msuya.
She noted that from Oct. 2 to 15, no food aid entered northern Gaza with "a trickle" allowed in, and all essential supplies for survival are running out.
"Given the abject conditions and intolerable suffering in north Gaza, the fact that humanitarian access is nearly non-existent is unconscionable," she said.
Msuya said that during the first two weeks of October, just one out of 54 coordinated movements to the north via the Al Rashid checkpoint was facilitated by Israeli authorities, while another four were impeded but eventually accomplished. Eighty-five percent of the movements were denied, and the rest were impeded or canceled, due to security or logistical issues.
"Every time a mission is impeded, the lives of people in need and humanitarians on the ground are put at even greater risk," she said.
"The level of suffering in Gaza defies our ability to capture it in words, or even to comprehend its scale," said the senior UN official, adding that "international humanitarian law must be respected and this council, and all member states, must exert all their influence to ensure it."
The representative of Algeria, who requested the meeting, expressed alarm about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.
He noted that a few trucks of aid were distributed in northern Gaza on Tuesday, but failed to reach Jabalia, which remains under siege. "Let me be crystal clear: a military siege that deprives civilians of essential means of survival is not just unacceptable. It is a war crime," he stated.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer for the State of Palestine to the United Nations, said that in the face of the "monstrosity" unfolding in northern Gaza, "silence and inaction are not an option."
Noting that the Palestinian and Lebanese people are paying the price for Israel's impunity, he said that in northern Gaza, 400,000 besieged, starved, and bombed Palestinians are being subjected to the so-called General Plan, according to which any Palestinian remaining in the north is considered a legitimate military target. "That is not war. These are crimes. They must be stopped. And they must be stopped now."
Mansour called on the Security Council to "fight back with the tools provided by the (UN) Charter and by the law to combat those who are obliterating the Charter and the law," stressing, "It is time to act. Anything else is complicity and surrender."
In his remarks, Israel's representative detailed recent attacks against his country. He said that although "101 human beings have been tormented by Hamas terrorists in their terror dungeons," Security Council members barely mentioned the hostages or did so as an afterthought.
He asserted that Israel and its humanitarian partners have "flooded" Gaza with humanitarian aid, and Hamas has "hijacked" aid and "weaponized" the humanitarian situation. ■
