UN Security Council members call for ‘huge’ surge in aid entry to Gaza
‘The situation is devastating, and frankly, beyond comprehension, and it’s getting worse,’ says British FM Lammy; European Union decides against severing ties with Israel
Members of the United Nations Security Council called on Monday for a surge in assistance to reach people in need in Gaza, warning that the situation in the Palestinian enclave was getting worse.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said there needs to be a “huge, huge rise in aid” to Gaza, where Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas have been fighting since October of last year.
The war began with Hamas’s October 7 invasion of southern Israel, where terrorists killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages to Gaza. Israel then invaded Gaza, where it has been fighting Hamas ever since.
According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 43,922 Palestinians have been killed during the war, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” according to IDF assessments in July. The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
“The situation is devastating, and frankly, beyond comprehension, and it’s getting worse, not better. Winter’s here. Famine is imminent, and 400 days into this war, it is totally unacceptable that it’s harder than ever to get aid into Gaza,” Lammy said.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that Washington was closely watching Israel’s actions to improve the situation for Palestinians and engaging with the Israeli government every day.
“Israel must also urgently take additional steps to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said.
US President Joe Biden’s administration concluded this month that Israel is not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and therefore not violating US law, even as Washington acknowledged that the humanitarian situation remained dire in the Palestinian enclave.
The assessment came after the US, in an October 13 letter, gave Israel a list of steps to take within 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza, warning that failure to do so might have possible consequences for US military aid to Israel.
Thomas-Greenfield said Israel was working to implement 12 of the 15 steps.
“We need to see all steps fully implemented and sustained, and we need to see concrete improvement in the humanitarian situation on the ground,” she said, including Israel allowing commercial trucks to move into Gaza alongside humanitarian assistance, addressing persistent lawlessness and implementing pauses in fighting in large areas of Gaza to allow assistance to reach those in need.
Tor Wennesland, the UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said humanitarian agencies face a challenging and dangerous operational environment in Gaza and access restrictions that hinder their work.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza, as winter begins, is catastrophic, particularly developments in the north of Gaza with a large-scale and near-total displacement of the population and widespread destruction and clearing of land, amidst what looks like a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law,” he said.
“The current conditions are among the worst we’ve seen during the entire war and are not set to improve,” he said.
EU decides not to suspend relations with Israel
Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers did not agree on Monday to suspend political dialogue with Israel, Poland said, following a proposal to do so from the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
Borrell had written to EU foreign ministers ahead of Monday’s meeting in Brussels, citing “serious concerns about possible breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters in Brussels that he and counterparts from other EU states had not agreed to this proposal.
“We know that there are tragic events in Gaza, huge civilian casualties, but we do not forget who started the current cycle of violence,” Sikorski said. “And I can tell you that there was no agreement on the idea of suspending negotiations with Israel.”
The political dialogue is enshrined in a broader agreement on relations between the EU and Israel, including extensive trade ties, that entered into force in June 2000.
A suspension would have needed approval from all 27 EU countries.
The EU has struggled to find a strong united position on the Gaza war, but the bloc has consistently called on Hamas to release all Israeli hostages and on both sides to respect international law.
