100 days of Gaza war ‘staining our shared humanity’: UN
A top UN official has said that the war in Gaza was staining humanity, as the conflict in the besieged territory moved into its 100th day.
“The massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss and grief of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity,” the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said in a statement on Saturday as he visited the Gaza Strip.
In response to Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in about 1,140 deaths, Israel has pounded Gaza, killing at least 23,968 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
Lazzarini said an entire generation of children were being “traumatized” and would take years to heal.
“People live in inhumane conditions, where diseases are spreading, including among children,” he said.
“They live through the unlivable, with the clock ticking fast towards famine.”
Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo, called Sunday for the establishment of a Palestinian state and a cease-fire in Gaza.
Call for int’l peace
summit
Shoukry and Wang called for “an international summit for peace to find a just, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause by ending the (Israeli) occupation and establishing an independent, contiguous Palestinian state,” a joint statement said.
The Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, seat of the Palestinian Authority, are separated by Israeli territory. Both were seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Pro-Palestinian
marches
In the US, thousands of demonstrators converged opposite the White House on Saturday to call for an end to Israeli military action in Gaza, while children joined a pro-Palestinian march through central London as part of a global-day-of-action against the longest and deadliest war between Israel and Palestinians in 75 years.
People in the US capital held aloft signs questioning President Joe Biden’s viability as a presidential candidate because of his staunch support for Israel.
Vendors were also selling South African flags as protesters chanted slogans in support of the country whose accusations of genocide against Israel prompted the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, to take up the case.
In a defiant speech Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the world court.
After the US and Germany, the Canadian, and British leaders also rejected the premise of ICJ genocide case against Israel.
Namibia, a southern African country where the first genocide of the 20th century took place under German colonial rule, rejected Germany’s support of the genocidal intent of "the racist regime" of Israel, Namibia's presidency said in a statement late Saturday.
Lamenting “Germany’s inability to draw lessons from its horrific history,” Namibian President Hage Geingob expressed “deep concern” for the German government’s announcement Friday that it “rejected the morally upright indictment brought forward by South Africa.”