Press release on UN evaluation of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip
On January 5, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released a report on the efforts to implement UN Security Council Resolution 2712 (adopted on November 15, 2023), which emphasised the need to protect children in conditions of the armed conflict. The report is straight forward: “So far it is clear that implementation has been only partial at best and is woefully insufficient.” It mentions the reason for this situation – the continuation of Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip.
Statistics vividly illustrate the catastrophe “on the ground.” In a bit less than one hundred days of bloodshed, the numbers of dead and wounded Palestinians in the enclave have exceeded 23,000 and 59,000, respectively, 70 percent of them women and children. Almost 2 million people in Gaza have to seek shelter, given that there are no relatively safe places or districts in the blocked enclave to which adequate supplies of humanitarian relief can be organised, as Mr Guterres confirms.
Over 60 percent of buildings have been damaged. In the UN’s estimate, the “nature and scale of the death and destruction are characteristic of the use of wide-area explosive weapons in populated areas…” These weapons are used by Israel. According to the UN Secretariat, medical facilities are also being attacked. About 300 strikes have hit 94 hospitals, and about 200 strikes have hit 125 facilities under the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). These attacks have already killed 144 UN employees – the highest one-time loss in the history of the UN.
People in the Gaza Strip are threatened by famine and epidemics of infectious diseases against the backdrop of the continuing hostilities, blockade, and the de facto absence of free humanitarian access. According to Mr Guterres, about 180 women give birth to babies in the enclave every day in such conditions.
We have to state with growing alarm that as the main body for maintaining international peace and security, the UN Security Council has so far failed to fulfil its direct mandate because of US resistance. Due to US objections, both adopted UN Security Council resolutions (2712 and 2720) do not include the key demand for an immediate and universal ceasefire and are doomed to remain on paper for this reason.
In the meantime, bloodshed in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could develop into a regional crisis with the growing escalation of violence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Red Sea. There is the threat of mass resettlement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan River to Egypt and Jordan.
Russia continues to advocate, primarily, in the UN Security Council and General Assembly, an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, and the need to organise free humanitarian access to Gaza and resume the political process based on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Russia believes that Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, including the seizing of hostages, deserves to be wholly condemned. Yet, Israel, as an occupying power, cannot and should not use this to justify the collective punishment of millions of Palestinians in the occupied territory in violation of the standards and principles of international humanitarian law.