2023-10-15 22:19:26
Eight days following the start of Israel’s response in Gaza in response to Hamas attacks once morest the Jewish state, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres is calling for humanitarian aid to enter the Palestinian enclave.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday called on Hamas to release all hostages and Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, warning that the Middle East was “on the brink from the abyss.”
“Gaza lacks water, electricity and other essential supplies,” Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
UN stockpiles of food, water, medical supplies and fuel in Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel “can be sent within hours”, he continued, adding that staff “must be able to move these supplies in and out of Gaza safely and without hindrance.”
Hostages “must not become bargaining chips”
He called on Hamas to release the hostages “immediately” and “unconditionally.” “Each of these two objectives is valid in itself. They must not become a bargaining chip,” declared Antonio Guterres, who affirmed that it was his duty to launch these two appeals “in this dramatic moment, so that we are on the edge of the abyss in the Middle East.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel during the attack perpetrated on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, mainly civilians, including children, and more than 150 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
In Gaza, now under siege, the Israeli response has killed 2,670 people, including more than 700 children, and injured 9,600, according to a report from local authorities.
Faced with retaliatory Israeli air strikes once morest the Gaza Strip and following calls from the army to evacuate the north of the Palestinian territory, more than a million people were displaced in one week in this 362 km2 territory, which has a total of 2.4 million inhabitants, according to the UN.
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