Nearly three weeks after an attack by Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 Israelis, the steady advance of Israel’s war plans has prompted increasingly desperate warnings from diplomats and aid officials over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and their certainty that, absent a halt to the fighting, the suffering will get much worse.
The admonitions — from the United Nations, as well as an increasingly unified group of Middle Eastern states — has angered Israeli officials and challenged the Biden administration’s repeated invocations of Israel’s right to self-defense.
In New York on Thursday, the U.N. General Assembly gathered to debate and vote on a joint Arab resolution, sponsored by Jordan and Mauritius on behalf of Arab and Muslim states, calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. On Wednesday, the United States and Britain vetoed a Russian cease-fire resolution at the U.N. Security Council, while Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-sponsored measure that called for “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to reach Gazan civilians.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that at least 7,082 Palestinians in the enclave had been killed since the start of Israel’s military operations, including nearly 3,000 children.
“Hell is settling in,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, wrote in an op-ed published Thursday by the Guardian.
In a joint statement released Thursday, foreign ministers from nine Arab countries called for an immediate cease-fire and the facilitation of “rapid, safe and sustainable” humanitarian access to Gaza, which is under a complete Israeli siege.
The statement signed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and others said the right to self-defense “does not justify flagrant violations of international law.” It also called for the “immediate” release of “hostages and civilian detainees.”
It warned that the conflict “may expand to other regions in the Middle East” and have far-reaching consequences for “international peace and security.”
Officials from a host of U.N. agencies warned Thursday that Gaza had become effectively unlivable, with stores of fuel, water and food having run out and the health system continuing to collapse. With hospitals already out of beds and doctors treating the wounded on floors and hallways, illness has begun to spread.
Over the past week, the United Nations has recorded 7,000 cases of acute respiratory infections, about 3,000 cases of diarrhea and hundreds of cases of scabies and lice, according to Richard Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization representative for the occupied Palestinian territories.
“Routine surveillance systems are not currently functioning — hampering effective detection, analysis and response to public health threats,” Peeperkorn said in a statement.
Lazzarini, the commissioner general of UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency, wrote that Gaza was being “strangled” as aid trickled into the enclave.
“The few convoys now entering will not assuage the civilian population’s sentiment that they have been abandoned and sacrificed by the world,” Lazzarini wrote in the Guardian. Israel’s refusal to allow fuel into Gaza, he wrote, would mean “no humanitarian response, no aid reaching people in need, no power for hospitals, no water, no bread.”
Lazzarini condemned the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, saying it “may amount to war crimes,” but added that “this does not justify the ongoing crimes against the civilian population of Gaza, including its 1 million children.”
“We will not be able to say we did not know,” he wrote.
Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said Thursday that despite Israeli warnings to residents of Gaza to evacuate their homes, many have nowhere to shelter from relentless airstrikes. “Advance warnings make no difference,” she said.
The Israeli military has continued its bombardment of southern Gaza, even after urging people in the north to move there for safety. “People are left with nothing but impossible choices,” Hastings said. “Nowhere is safe.”
She called for adherence to international humanitarian law, which she said “means that civilians must be protected and have the essentials to survive” and “that hostages — all hostages — must be released, immediately and unconditionally.” Israeli officials say Hamas is holding more than 220 hostages in Gaza.
Ali Barakeh, a member of Hamas’s leadership based in Beirut, said in an interview Thursday that in negotiations brokered by Egypt and Qatar, Hamas was proposing to release all foreign civilian hostages in exchange for a five-day cease-fire. Israeli civilian hostages would be released if additional demands were met, he said, including the release of Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons and the opening of the Rafah border crossing so wounded civilians can receive care in Egypt and fuel, food, medicine and water can enter Gaza.
“We are ready to let them all leave,” Barakeh said. The United Nations could distribute the aid, he said, including fuel intended for hospitals, to fulfill Israel’s demand that no supplies reach Hamas.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Thursday that Hamas “is ready to release nonmilitary prisoners to us,” adding that Iran “stands ready to play its part” in obtaining their freedom.
“The world should support the release of 6,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails,” he said, although it was unclear whether he was proposing an exchange. Iran is the main military and financial backer of Hamas and other militant groups in the region, some of which have launched attacks recently on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
Fahim and Dadouch reported from Beirut, Parker from Cairo and DeYoung from Washington. Mohamad el Chamaa in Beirut contributed to this report.
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