Catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, warns UN secretary general

“A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes,” UN Secretary General António Guterres warned on Saturday as another night of heavy bombing flattened Gaza and virtually cut it off from the outside world.

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution by 120 to 14 votes calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza. But even this overwhelming support for a pause in fighting had little impact on the situation in Gaza, where the Israeli military action seems to have entered a decisive phase.

“Gaza is in complete blackout and isolation while heavy shelling continues,” warned Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for foreign affairs.

In a tweet posted on Saturday, he described the situation in Gaza as ‘desperate’, where people live “without electricity, food, water”.

Noting that “far too many civilians, including children, have been killed,” Mr Borrell said: “This is against International Humanitarian Law.”

The UNGA resolution, on Friday, besides calling for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza, also underlined the hope that it would lead to a cessation of hostilities.

But the only power that could make it happen, voted against the resolution. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, said her country voted against the resolution because it did not condemn Hamas and did not call for the release of prisoners.

Besides the US and Israel, 12 other countries voted against the resolution. They included five island nations in the Pacific and four European countries — Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic and Hungary.

Eight EU members voted in favour of the resolution. Three of the five permanent members of UN Security Council also voted for the resolution — China, France and Russia.

The US voted against it while the the UK and Ukraine abstained.

Arab and OIC nations, who moved the resolution with support from 40 other states, were confident China and Russia would vote in favour, but the French vote was a pleasant surprise for them.

UAE Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, the Arab representative on the Security Council, expressed delight at the result. “Yes, 120 votes in this kind of geopolitical environment is a very, very high signal of support for international law, for proportionate use of force,” she said after the vote.

Mr Guterres urged the world to go beyond the status quo. “We cannot lose sight of the only realistic foundation for peace and stability in the Middle East — a two-state solution,” he said in his speech.

France’s UN Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said his country supported the resolution “because nothing could justify the suffering of civilians”. He urged collective efforts to establish a humanitarian truce.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said the European votes indicate they can be “very helpful” in pursuing a Security Council resolution “or in maximising pressure on Israel to stop this war”.

He called the General Assembly “more courageous, more principled” than the divided Security Council, which failed in four attempts during the past two weeks to reach agreement on a resolution. Two were vetoed and two failed to get the minimum votes required for approval.

Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram drew loud applause when he said the Arab-drafted resolution deliberately didn’t condemn or mention Israel or name any other party. “If Canada (which moved an amendment) was really equitable, it would agree either to name everybody — both sides who are guilty of having committed crimes — or it would not name either as we chose,” he said.

The amendment failed to get a two-thirds majority of those voting for or against. In a first, India also abstained from voting in the UN on a resolution on Palestine. The Indian envoy said India did so because the resolution failed to condemn Hamas.