UN: Gaza becoming ‘graveyard for children’
Raisi condemns West’s double standards on war crimes
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that the protection of civilians “must be paramount” in the Gaza Strip, warning that the Palestinian territory was becoming “a graveyard for children.”
“We must act now to find a way out of this brutal, awful, agonizing dead end of destruction,” Guterres told reporters, and again called for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.
“Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day,” Guterres said.
Since October 7, Israel has launched brutal attacks on the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, killing more than 10,000 people – most of them women and children.
The regime has also imposed a total siege on the Palestinian territory, blocking the entry of food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity.
“Ground operations by the Israel Defense Forces and continued bombardment are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and UN facilities – including shelters. No one is safe,” Guterres told reporters.
Guterres said 89 people working with the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) had been killed in Gaza, which he described as the highest toll for UN aid workers, higher “than in any comparable period in the history of our organization”.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday 10,328 people have been killed in the month-long war on Gaza.
Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians have even infuriated some Western countries.
Disproportionate attacks
Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Monday that Israel’s attacks on innocent civilians in Gaza are disproportionate.
“Bombing down a refugee camp because it allegedly houses one Hamas leader is completely disproportionate. It is never acceptable that so many civilian casualties are caused trying to eliminate one person,” Alexander De Croo told reporters after meeting Jordan’s King Abdullah in Brussels.
Iran, which is the main supporter of the Hamas resistance group, has once again called for establishment of a cease-fire in Gaza.
The Israeli regime has so far rebuffed global calls for a cease-fire, with the regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that there will be no cease-fire until the people arrested by Hamas are freed.
Extra-regional consequences
Speaking in a phone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said the continuation of the killing of the Palestinian people has infuriated all the free nations in the world, warning that the killings will have “extra-regional
consequences.”
Raisi defended the Palestinian resistance groups’ legitimate right to confront the Israeli regime’s occupation and called on all countries to support the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom.
He criticized global double standards when it comes to condemning war crimes, saying that the European countries’ confrontation against Nazi Germany is regarded as an “admirable and heroic” act but the resistance of the Palestinian people against the child-killing and criminal Israeli regime is condemned.
Jordan’s warning
Jordan’s Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh said on Monday his country was leaving “all options” open in its response to what it called Israel’s failure to discriminate between military and civilian targets in its intensifying bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip.
His comments came days after Jordan recalled its ambassador from Israel in protest at Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Israeli Army, which has launched a ground invasion in the Palestinian territory, is gradually making the situation for the Gazans worse.
The regime gave civilians still trapped inside freshly encircled Gaza City a four-hour window to leave, and residents escaping the city said they passed tanks in position to storm it. Israel said its forces have surrounded Gaza City, home to a third of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, and are poised to attack it.
Netanyahu also expressed openness to “little pauses” in the current fighting to facilitate the release of captives.
Netanyahu ruled out any general cease-fire without the release of the more than 240 people arrested by Hamas in its Oct. 7 operation, but said he was open to “tactical little pauses.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Monday that the regime would take “overall responsibility” for Gaza’s security for an unspecified period after the war with Hamas ends.