The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
reiterated the call for an urgent ceasefire between Israel and
Hamas during a visit to the Rafah crossing and El Arish Hospital
in Egypt on Wednesday.
Volker Türk highlighted the dichotomy at the border crossing,
describing it as a “lifeline” for the 2.3 million residents of
Gaza over the past month, although “unjustly, outrageously thin.”
But it is also “the gates to a living nightmare”, he continued,
as people in Gaza “have been suffocating, under persistent
bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, for
food, for electricity and fuel.”
Unprecedented danger
The human rights chief is the latest senior UN official to travel
to the region since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October,
killing 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 240 others who were
taken inside the enclave.
In response, Israel has been repeatedly bombarding the Gaza
Strip, in addition to imposing a total siege on the enclave and
launching a ground invasion, ordering civilians in the north to
move south.
Mr. Türk said the atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed
groups, and the continued holding of hostages, were heinous and
constitute war crimes.
“The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians is
also a war crime, as is unlawful forcible evacuation of
civilians,” he added.
Warning that “we have fallen off a precipice,” he stated that
“even in the context of a 56-year occupation, the situation is
the most dangerous we have faced for people in Gaza, in Israel,
in the West Bank but also regionally.”
Mr. Türk issued an urgent appeal for the parties to agree to a
ceasefire now so that three “critical human rights imperatives”
can be met.
He called for sufficient aid deliveries into Gaza, the release of
all hostages and enabling “the political space to finally
implement a durable end to the occupation, based on the rights of
both Palestinians and Israelis to self-determination.”
Distinguish between Hamas and Palestinians:
Guterres
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General António
Guterres said on Wednesday that the number of civilians
killed in Gaza shows that something is “clearly wrong” with
Israel’s operations against Hamas.
“There are violations by Hamas when they have human shields. But
when one looks at the number of civilians that were killed with
the military operations, there is something that is clearly
wrong," he told the Reuters NEXT conference in New York, hosted
by the news agency.
“It is also important to make Israel understand that it is
against the interests of Israel to see every day the terrible
image of the dramatic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian
people," he said. "That doesn't help Israel in relation to the
global public opinion."
While he strongly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel, Mr.
Guterres said “we need to distinguish - Hamas is one thing, the
Palestinian people (are) another”, adding “if we don't make that
distinction, I think it's humanity itself that will lose its
meaning.”
