UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres cautioned on Tuesday against an Israeli draft legislation aiming to end the activities and privileges of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters, Guterres said the legislation "would likely deal a terrible blow to the international humanitarian response in Gaza" and across the occupied Palestinian territories.
He noted that if the legislation is approved, it will be "diametrically opposed to the UN Charter and in violation of Israel's obligations under international law." He said "such a measure would suffocate efforts to ease human suffering and tensions in Gaza, and indeed, the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory," and would be a "catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster." It "would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people," Guterres noted.
The UN chief said in Gaza's north, "we are witnessing a clear intensification of military operations by Israel. Residential areas have been attacked. Hospitals ordered to evacuate. And electricity cut off - with no fuel or commercial goods allowed in." There is something fundamentally wrong in the way this war is being conducted. Ordering civilians to evacuate does not keep them safe if they have no safe place to go and no shelter, food, medicine or water. "No place is safe in Gaza, and no one is safe. International law is unambiguous: civilians everywhere must be respected and protected - and their essential needs must be met, including through humanitarian assistance," he said.
He said, "the conflict in the Middle East is getting worse by the hour -- and our warnings about the horrific impacts of escalation keep coming to pass". "Every air strike, every missile launch, every rocket fired, pushes peace further out of reach and makes the suffering even worse for the millions of civilians caught in the middle," he pointed out.
Source: Kuwait News Agency
