UNSC: 'Gaza is now hell on Earth' amid Israel bombardments; ceasefire is 'matter of life and death' for millions

After four failed efforts to reach a consensus on a Gaza resolution, the UN Security Council met in emergency session again on Monday afternoon (New York time) to discuss the ongoing crisis, amid continuing Israeli bombardment and reported ground incursions. Palestine says Gaza is now hell on Earth while Israel says it will defend ourselves against annihilation.

United Nations: The head of the UNRWA - the UN agency for Palestinian refugees - “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions,” accusing Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians and the forced displacement of civilians.

Philippe Lazzarini while addressing a UN emergency meeting Monday said "a further breakdown of civil order following the looting of the agency’s warehouses by Palestinians searching for food and other aid will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the largest UN agency in Gaza to continue operating."

In their briefings to the UN Security Council, Lazzarini, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield painted a dire picture of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza 23 days after Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, and its ongoing retaliatory military action aimed at “obliterating” the militant group, which controls Gaza.

According to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 8,300 people have been killed – 66% of them women and children – and tens of thousands injured.

Russell said that toll includes over 3,400 children killed and more than 6,300 injured. “This means that more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day – a number which should shake each of us to our core,” she said.

Lazzarini said: “This surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019. This cannot be collateral damage”

Thomas-Greenfield urged the divided Security Council to come together. The council has rejected four resolutions that would have responded to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the ongoing war. She said, “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing more dire by the day.”

In a sign of increasing US concern at the escalating Palestinian death toll, Thomas-Greenfield told the council Biden reiterated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday “that while Israel has the right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism, it must do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law.”

'Gaza is now hell on Earth'-Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the observer State of Palestine, in his address, thanked the UN agency briefers before him for making “moving calls” for action from the field, in a bid to save more Palestinian lives in Gaza.

He complimented the UN Secretary-General’s call for a humanitarian ceasefire at the gates of the Rafah crossing last week, and said that the UN’s call for 100 trucks a day must be heeded.

“Gaza is now hell on Earth.” He said.

“Saving humanity from hell today means for the UN to save Palestinians in Gaza,” Mansour stressed. He also provided a snapshot of life on the ground there, with more than half the population forcibly displaced, constantly moving and being killed wherever they go, and half the homes in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed.

“Over 1.4 million forcibly displaced. Virtually all of our people in Gaza are displaced”, sleeping in cars, the streets, “and still being killed wherever they go,” he said.

“A leaked document prepared by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry... confirms that in fact relocating Palestinians from Gaza to tent cities in Sinai is not a threat we imagined but a reality Israel is trying to impose,” the Palestinian Observer said. After Israel has pushed, more than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed to date, including over 3,000 in the south of Gaza.

“These staggering figures keep rising with every minute that action is delayed to stop the onslaught against our people,” he said.

The magnitude of this manmade tragedy can be explained with one figure: Israeli airstrikes have killed 3,500 Palestinian children in just three weeks. This figure is more than the number of children being killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019, according to Save the Children.

“Every five minutes, a Palestinian child is killed,” he said. He asked Council members how many more days they will wait to say “enough, paralysed, not acting to carry out your duty”, and to recognize this is a war against children. “Our children who are, like yours, children of God, children of light. The angels on Earth. Enough darkness, enough death.”

Referring to the UN General Assembly, he said “representing the countries of the world, adopted a resolution grounded in humanity, morality, legality and the rejection of double standards”, while calling for an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce.

The Palestinian Observer said the UN humanitarians had acted and accused the Security Council of not acting. “it is you”.

A truce “must happen immediately”, he said and urged the Council to follow the Assembly’s example and its wisdom and uphold its responsibilities to put an end to the bloodshed. “Thousands more lives hang in the balance.”

It is clear that the Council’s latest draft resolution enjoyed broad support, with 11 votes in favour, three abstentions and one against. The text must serve as basis for a clear and unequivocal position of the Council at this critical juncture, he said.

“Palestinians in Gaza face death every day and every night. Save them. Look at them as human beings”.

Humanitarians from agencies and in hospitals should be allowed to work, free from the risk of death by bombing, the Palestinian Observer said.

“Show respect for our inherent dignity, not in words but in deeds, in action… No one should justify our killing or find reasons to give more time to the killer. Call for an end of this assault on an entire nation.”

End to the killings in the West Bank by settlers and occupation forces and the forced displacement underway there, he urged.

“We have said time and time again there is no military solution to this conflict,” he said. “We are yet to demonstrate there is a peaceful one,” he said imploring the ambassadors to finally make a two-State solution a reality, and “push the occupation to an end.”

“Every minute counts. Every minute is the difference between life and death for Palestinians in Gaza.”

Israel: We’ll defend ourselves against annihilation-Israel Permanent representative and Ambassador Gilad Erdan said the agricultural villages in southern Israel invaded by Hamas terrorists were peaceful, akin to his grandparents’ village in Transylvania.

“Entire communities were exterminated, only this time the murderers were Hamas Nazis. Entire Israeli families were turned into smoke and ash – no different than the fate my grandfather’s family met in Auschwitz.”

“The brutality of the crimes is not the only thing that the savage Hamas Nazis share with the German Nazis. They both share a common ideology,” he added, to “exterminate the Jews,” the Ambassador said.

The “Ayotallah regime” in Iran “is the modern Nazi regime, and their death squads include Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Houthis, Revolutionary Guard, and other savage jihadists,” the Israel's diplomat said.

“Just like the Nazi regime, the Ayotallah regime sows death and destruction everywhere it touches.”

Over 250,000 Israeli civilians have been displaced since their war on Hamas began on 7 October and that millions more are living under constant and indiscriminate rocket fire “at the hands of Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadists,” he said.

“Does this Council not have anything to say about this? Is this not also part of the situation in the Middle East?” he wondered. He accused the Security Council of being “silent” when atrocities are committed against innocent Jewish civilians, including children.

Israelis wear Yellow star in Security Council-“Some Member States have learned nothing in the past 80 years. Some of you have forgotten why this body was established, so I will remind you, from this day on each time you look at me, you will remember me what staying silent in the face of evil means,” he said. “Just like my grandparents and the grandparents of millions of Jews, from now on my team and I will wear yellow stars.”

The Ambassador stood up and placed a yellow star on his suit and his delegation seated behind him were also seen doing the same.

“We will wear this star, until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages. We walk with a yellow star as a symbol of pride, a reminder that we swore to fight back to defend ourselves.”

It is pertinent to note that German's made all the semites wear a yellow star to identify them.

Erdan said antisemites “have been empowered”, and that they are calling for the killing of Jews in several countries around the world. If the Security Council would stand by silently as the hatred against Jews grows, and if it would “take the approach of Chamberlin to appease the Nazis and its sympathizers”, he asked, adding, “or rather model Britain’s war leader Winston Churchill “to fight evil with blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

The Israeli people are strong, we are unbreakable, and we are going nowhere, he asserted.

“Many have tried to destroy us, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Nazis, to name just a few, but none have succeeded. And the Iranian Reich will be no different,” he said. “Israel will prevail, God willing. We will bring our hostages home, and the citizens of the Jewish State will live in peace and freedom.” (with AP inputs)

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