UN Chief Urges Immediate Ceasefire Amid Worsening Gaza ‘Humanitarian Disaster’
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - With the humanitarian disaster in Gaza reaching critical levels, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has urgently appealed for an immediate ceasefire to address the escalating crisis and ensure the delivery of crucial aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Guterres told journalists at the Rafah border crossing into Gaza that it is time for a ceasefire and for an "ironclad commitment by Israel" to allow unhindered aid deliveries into the besieged enclave as he began his annual Ramadan solidarity trip on Saturday with planned visits to Egypt and Jordan.
“The daily assault on the human dignity of Palestinians is creating a crisis of credibility for the international community,” he said in remarks following a visit to the gates of the besieged Palestinian territory at the Rafah border crossing on Saturday.
Guterres repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire to alleviate “the plight of Palestinian children, women and men struggling to survive the nightmare” in famine-threatened Gaza.
“Looking at Gaza, it almost appears that the four horsemen of war, famine, conquest and death are galloping across it,” he said. “The whole world recognises that it’s past time to silence the guns and ensure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
The UN has repeatedly warned of famine in the Palestinian territory, particularly in the north, which has been largely cut off from aid deliveries.
Guterres said Palestinians in Gaza “desperately need what has been promised – a flood of aid”. “Not trickles. Not drops,” he added.
The Israeli regime is under growing international pressure to ease its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, which has killed at least 32,226 people in less than six months, most of them women and children.
Israel has pledged to pursue its military campaign all the way to Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians have sought shelter, penned in by the Egyptian border.
Guterres, who also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, called the Rafah border crossing and Egypt’s El Arish airport where assistance is sent “essential arteries for life-saving aid into Gaza”.
“But those arteries are clogged,” he said, with massive lines of trucks piled up on the Egyptian side, only trickling in as the humanitarian situation worsens.
