Guterres’ visit comes as Israel faces global pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday that the long line of blocked trucks is a moral outrage, during a visit on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.
Israel should give an “ironclad commitment” for access to humanitarian aid, Guterres said, according to Reuters news agency, while renewing his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
🚨🇵🇸 BREAKING:
ANTONIO GUTERRES VISITS RAFAH CROSSING! pic.twitter.com/mWzACdQWZD
— Amanur Rahman (@the_amanur) March 23, 2024
“Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said.
“That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage.”
Guterres’ visit comes as Israel faces global pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, amid spreading famine in the besieged and war-torn Strip.
Additionally, Israel vowed to launch a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, just over the border from Egypt, where a majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is now sheltering.
Injured Palestinians
Guterres also visited Palestinian patients in the hospital of the Egyptian city of El-Arish, according to the Anadolu news agency.
“Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has just arrived in North Sinai, Egypt,” the UN spokesperson said on X.
“This is his first stop during his annual Ramadan solidarity visit to the region,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian Al Qahera channel reported that Guterres arrived at El-Arish airport “on a visit to renew the call for a ceasefire in Gaza.”
"This Ramadan, I have come to the Rafah crossing to spotlight the hardship and pain of Palestinians in Gaza – and the obstacles to easing their plight."
– @antonioguterres tells journalists at the Rafah Border Crossing.
Full remarks: https://t.co/RY2PpyyAIJ
Photo: Mark Garten pic.twitter.com/xYidZTUv2N— UN Spokesperson (@UN_Spokesperson) March 23, 2024
On Friday, the UN deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, announced the UN chief’s annual “solidarity trip” to Egypt and Jordan, marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Haq noted that the UN chief would meet with humanitarian aid workers.
The deputy spokesperson further mentioned that Guterres will visit the facilities of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) during his visit to Jordan.
Gaza Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 32,142 Palestinians have been killed, and 74,412 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’
(The Palestine Chronicle)
