[News] UN chief says blocked Gaza aid is a ‘moral outrage’, calls for war to end

[Anti-Imperialist News]

aljazeera.com
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/23/un-chief-says-blocked-gaza-aid-is-a-moral-outage-calls-for-war-to-end>
UN chief says blocked Gaza aid is a ‘moral outrage’, calls for war to end
Al Jazeera
March 24, 2024
------------------------------

*On a visit to the Rafah crossing, Antonio Guterres urges Israel to give
people in Gaza unfettered access to humanitarian aid.*

The line of blocked aid trucks stuck on Egypt’s side of the border with the
Gaza Strip while Palestinians face starvation on the other side is a “moral
outrage”, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on a visit
to the Rafah crossing.

“I have come to Rafah to shine a spotlight on the pain of Palestinians in
Gaza,” the UN chief said on Saturday, addressing a news conference in El
Arish, in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where much of the international relief
for Gaza is stockpiled as Israel continues to block aid from entering.

“Here, from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it
all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the
long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said.

“That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. Any further onslaught
will make things even worse – worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for
hostages and worse for all people in the region.”

The visit by Guterres, which is a part of his annual “solidarity trip” to
Muslim countries during Ramadan, comes as Israel faces global pressure to
allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been devastated by more
than five months of war.

“You cannot see so many people being killed, you cannot see so much
suffering without feeling hugely frustrated,” Guterres said while taking
questions from reporters. “We don’t have the power to stop [the war in
Gaza], I appeal to those who have the power to stop it to do it,” he added.
‘Flood Gaza with life-saving aid’

Several NGOs and rights organisation have accused
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/18/israel-deliberately-blocking-medical-aid-from-gaza-oxfam-report-warns>
Israel of deliberately blocking aid to Gaza as warnings of famine in the
besieged strip rise.

Receiving Guterres at the airport in El Arish, regional governor Mohamed
Shusha said some 7,000 trucks were waiting in North Sinai to deliver aid to
Gaza, but that inspection procedures demanded by Israel had held up the
flow of relief.

The UN chief stressed that it was time for Israel to give an “ironclad
commitment” for unfettered access to humanitarian goods throughout Gaza and
said that the UN would also continue to work with Egypt to “streamline” the
flow of aid into Gaza.

“It’s time to truly flood Gaza with life-saving aid. The choice is clear:
either surge or starvation,” Guterres said.

This week, a global food monitor warned that famine was imminent in
northern Gaza and could spread to other parts of the territory if a
ceasefire is not agreed.

In a post <https://twitter.com/UNLazzarini/status/1771499428689375603> on
the social media platform X, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Relief
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said a food convoy had
been denied access to northern Gaza for the second time this week.

Lazzarini noted the last time the UNRWA was able to deliver aid to the
northern part of the enclave, where starvation is spreading, was two months
ago.

“This is a man-made hunger & looming famine which can still be averted,” he
said. “The Israeli authorities must allow delivering food aid at scale to
the north including via UNRWA, the largest humanitarian organisation in
Gaza.”

Israel has kept all but one of its land crossings into the enclave closed.
It opened the Karem Abu Salem crossing (which Israel calls Kerem Shalom)
close to Rafah in late December and denies accusations by Egypt, rights
groups and UN agencies that it has delayed deliveries of humanitarian
relief.
[image: Wounded Palestinians, including children, are taken by horse-drawn
carriage to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after Israel hit Palestinians waiting
for humanitarian aid at Kuwait Junction in Gaza City]Wounded Palestinians,
including children, are taken by horse-drawn carriage to al-Ahli Baptist
Hospital after Israel hit Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at
Kuwait Junction in Gaza City on March 23, 2024 [Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu
Agency] ‘Aid distribution with a humanitarian ceasefire’

Since October, more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s
military campaign in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to
local health authorities.

Guterres highlighted that the continuing war has become an obstacle for
delivering aid in the region with continuous violence and bombardments
killing people and humanitarian workers at aid distribution points.

On Saturday, near the time of Guterres’s news conference, at least 19 people
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/23/at-least-19-reported-killed-as-israeli-forces-fire-on-gaza-aid-seekers>
were killed in Israeli shelling as aid was being distributed at the Kuwait
Roundabout in Gaza City, authorities in Gaza said.

This attack at a food distribution point, a primary location for delivering
assistance to the northern part of the strip, comes days after at least 21
Palestinian people were killed
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/15/massacre-israel-forces-attack-crowds-waiting-for-aid-in-gaza-killing-21>
by Israeli troops in Gaza City, while waiting for aid.

“There is no way to have an effective aid distribution in Gaza without a
humanitarian ceasefire,” the UN chief told reporters, adding that it was
also time for all captives being held by Hamas in Gaza to be released.

Video Duration 03 minutes 36 seconds
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