UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reaffirmed his call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict on Saturday during a visit to Rafah, which is bordered by Egypt and Gaza.
“It is time to silence the guns,” he was quoted by the BBC. Remarking in front of the gate of the Rafah crossing, where aid enters Gaza, he said that the U.N. would keep working with Egypt to “streamline” the flow of aid into Gaza.
He further stated that there is a moral outcry over the lengthy line of stopped relief trucks where people are starving on Egypt’s side of the Gaza Strip border.
According to Reuters, Guterres was quoted as saying, “Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage.”
“I want Palestinians in Gaza to know: You are not alone. People around the world are outraged by the horrors we are all witnessing in real-time. Palestinians in Gaza remain stuck in a non-stop nightmare,” he added.
Guterres also visited a hospital in el-Arish, an Egyptian city that sits close to the Gaza border. “You cannot see so many people being killed, you cannot see so much suffering without feeling hugely frustrated. We don’t have the power to stop [the war in Gaza], I appeal to those who have the power to stop it to do it,” he said.
Today I met with Palestinian civilians at the General Hospital in Al Arish, Egypt.
It’s impossible not to feel heartbroken by the accounts of those injured or separated from their families.
It’s time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
It’s time to silence the guns. pic.twitter.com/y0gQijjNol
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 23, 2024
He is expected to join refugees who left Sudan due to ongoing conflict for iftar, the evening meal that marks the end of Ramadan’s daily fast, in Cairo. After that, Guterres will go to Amman, Jordan, to see UNRWA facilities. The UN agency that provides assistance to Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has been entangled in a dispute with Israel over claims that 12 of its thirty thousand employees took part in the Hamas attacks on October 7.
Since then, the UN has terminated the workers and initiated an independent and internal investigation into UNWRA after receiving proof from Israel that they took part in the October attack. However, Israel then has purportedly provided stakeholders with intelligence indicating that 1,200 out of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees have connections to terrorists in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli foreign minister Katz has alleged that, under Guterres, the world body has become an “antisemitic and anti-Israeli body” that “shelters and emboldens terror”.
the UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres, stood today on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, without condemning in any way the Hamas-ISIS terrorists who plunder humanitarian aid, without condemning @UNRWA that…
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) March 23, 2024
In a post on X, the minister said the UN chief “stood today on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, without condemning in any way the Hamas-ISIS [ISIL] terrorists who plunder humanitarian aid, without condemning UNRWA that cooperates with terrorists — and without calling for the immediate, unconditional release of all Israeli hostages.”
