Gaza worse than hell on Earth: Red Cross chief
What’s happening in Gaza, exceeds all boundaries of legal, moral, and humanitarian norms, she says
Gaza has become worse than hell on Earth, said president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric.
Speaking in a BBC interview at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Spoljaric says humanity is failing. "States are not doing enough to end the war, end the suffering of Palestinians and release Israeli hostages," she adds.
According to Spoljaric, Palestinians are being denied their basic human dignity, and the principles of international humanitarian law are being severely undermined.
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What's happening in Gaza, she said, exceeds all boundaries of legal, moral, and humanitarian norms.
The ICRC, a neutral body working in conflict zones, currently has over 300 staff in Gaza—most of them local Palestinians. Its surgical hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza, is the nearest medical facility to recent chaotic scenes where many Palestinians were killed during desperate aid distributions near sites associated with the Israel and US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
On one recent morning, the Rafah hospital treated 184 people—19 of whom were dead on arrival, and eight more died shortly after. This marked the highest single-incident casualty figure at the facility since its establishment just over a year ago.
As the guardian of the Geneva Conventions—particularly the Fourth Convention, established after World War II to safeguard civilians during conflict—the ICRC insists that the laws of war apply to all sides.
Spoljaric emphasized that Hamas's attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, do not justify the scale of destruction unfolding now. She expressed alarm over the rising rhetoric of "total war," the pursuit of victory at any cost, and growing dehumanisation.
