Antonio Guterres is once again sounding the alarm on the consequences of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Calling on the terrorist organization to release all hostages and Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the UN secretary-general warned that the Middle East was “on the brink of collapse.” ‘abyss’.
“Gaza lacks water, electricity and other essential supplies,” Antonio Guterres said in a statement. UN stockpiles of food, water, medical supplies and fuel in Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel “can be sent within hours”, he continued, adding that staff “must be able to move these supplies in and out of Gaza safely and without hindrance.”
Objectives which “must not become a bargaining chip”
The UN Secretary General therefore also asked Hamas to release the hostages “immediately” and “unconditionally”. “Each of these two objectives is valid in its own right. They must not become a bargaining chip,” he declared, affirming that it was his duty to launch these two appeals “at this dramatic moment, when we are on the edge of the abyss in the Middle -East”.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel during the attack perpetrated on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, mainly civilians, including children, and more than 150 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. In Gaza, now under siege, the Israeli response has killed 2,670 people, including more than 700 children, and injured 9,600, according to a latest report from local authorities on Sunday.
Faced with retaliatory Israeli air strikes against the Gaza Strip and after calls from the army to evacuate the north of the Palestinian territory, more than a million people were displaced in one week in this 362 km2 territory, which has a total of 2.4 million inhabitants, according to the UN.