UN relief chief urges action 'to prevent genocide' in Gaza

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.

In a joint statement, five European members of the UN Security Council said that they were "deeply concerned" at the Israeli plan, "which the UN has said would not meet humanitarian principles."

"Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool or a military tactic," read the statement by France, Britain, Slovenia, Greece and Denmark.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, rejected the allegations against his government as "baseless and outrageous accusations."

'Children scream'

The UN relief chief warned that while the International Court of Justice deliberated over whether Israel's actions in Gaza constituted genocide, "it will be too late."

"We have briefed this Council in great detail on the extensive civilian harm we witness daily: death, injury, destruction, hunger, disease, torture, other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, repeated displacement, on a large scale.

"We have described the deliberate obstruction of aid operations and the systematic dismantling of Palestinian life, and that which sustains it, in Gaza," he said.

On Tuesday, Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, with rescue officials saying an attack near a hospital in the south of the territory killed at least 28 people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced his military would enter Gaza "with full force" in the coming days, after recommencing operations having broken a ceasefire two months ago.

The war began in October 2023 after a Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

Israel launched a withering offensive in response, killing at least 52,908 people - mostly civilians - according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry, which is considered reliable by the UN.

It has also targeted civilian infrastructure, destroying roads, schools, hospitals and residential neighborhoods, alleging that Hamas was using them as cover.

"I can tell you from having visited what's left of Gaza's medical system that death on this scale has a sound and a smell that does not leave you," said Fletcher.

"As one nurse described it: 'children scream as we peel burnt fabric from their skin.'"

The senior official charged that the UN Security Council was not doing enough to prevent the violence.

"For those who will not survive what we fear is coming - in plain sight - it will be no consolation to know that future generations will hold us in this chamber to account," he said.

"But they will. And, if we have not seriously done 'all we could,' we should fear that judgment."