AFP :
United Nations relief chief Tom Fletcher on Tuesday called on the UN Security Council to take action “to prevent genocide” in Gaza, delivering a scathing account of Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territory.
Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, demanded that Israel lift its aid blockade on Gaza, where its offensive has killed tens of thousands and reduced much of the enclave to rubble.
“For those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now?” asked Fletcher. “Will you act — decisively — to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?”
He alleged that Israel was “deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Fletcher said UN agencies had “life-saving supplies” ready to deliver at the borders but were denied access by Israel. He also decried Israel’s conditions for allowing aid delivery as “a cynical sideshow.”
“It makes starvation a bargaining chip,” Fletcher said. “A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement. If any of this still matters, have no part in it.
The Israeli proposal for aid deliveries, the details of which have not been made public, “practically excludes many, including people with disabilities, women, children, the elderly and the wounded,” he said.
