Israel is facing intensifying international condemnation for its killing of starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and its attacks on humanitarian efforts, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the “last lifelines keeping people alive [in the strip] are collapsing”.
An angry chorus of senior figures, among them the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and a senior Catholic cleric, expressed on Tuesday a growing sense of global horror over Israel’s actions.
“I spoke again with [the Israeli foreign minister] Gideon Saar to recall our understanding on aid flow and made clear that IDF [Israel Defense Forces] must stop killing people at distribution points,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, wrote on X. “The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible.”
She said “all options were on the table” if Israel does not deliver on aid pledges, but did not say what those options included.
According to UN officials on Tuesday, more than 1,000 desperate Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the end of May trying to reach food distributions run by the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) amid widening conditions of starvation in the Palestinian territory.
The comments came as Israeli forces attacked warehousing and staff accommodation in Deir al-Balah – Gaza’s main aid hub – belonging to the World Health Organization.
The Israeli strikes on WHO facilities came as Israel cancelled the work visa of Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) inside Gaza and the most senior UN aid official in the coastal strip.
Speaking to the UN security council on Tuesday, Guterres described the situation in Gaza as a “horror show” condemning the Israeli attacks on UN offices.
“Malnourishment is soaring and starvation is knocking on every door in Gaza,”Guterres said. “And now we are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles. That system is being denied the conditions to function. Denied the space to deliver. Denied the safety to save lives.”
Guterres’ comments came hours after a hard-hitting joint statement on Monday by 27 western countries including the UK, France, Australia and Canada harshly criticising Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid and calling for an immediate end to the war.
Guterres said he “deplored the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition” as health officials in Gaza reported a further 33 deaths, including 12 children, in the past 48 hours.
Lammy amplified that message in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, describing himself as “appalled [and] sickened” by what was happening in Gaza.
“These are not words that are usually used by a foreign secretary who is attempting to be diplomatic,” Lammy said.
“But when you see innocent children holding out their hand for food, and you see them shot and killed in the way that we have seen in the last few days, of course Britain must call it out.”
Thameen Al-Kheetan, a UN human rights office spokesperson, said: “Over 1,000 Palestinians have now been killed by the Israeli military while trying to get food in Gaza since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operating.
“As of 21 July, we have recorded 1,054 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 766 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 near UN and other humanitarian organisations’ aid convoys.”
The head of the UN’s main agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, on Tuesday described Gaza as a “hell on earth”.
Philippe Lazzarini said Unrwa’s own staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty owing to hunger and exhaustion as Israel limited access to life-saving humanitarian aid, and that many were surviving on a single small meal a day.
“Caretakers, including Unrwa colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now – doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them Unrwa staff, are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” he said in a statement at a media briefing in Geneva.
The UN World Food Programme on Monday said its assessments showed a quarter of the population of Gaza was facing “famine-like” conditions and almost 100,000 women and children were suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
The most recent assessment of hunger in Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a group that includes the World Food Programme and the WHO, said about 10% of the territory’s population – 244,000 people – were facing catastrophic levels of hunger and 93% were experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Separately, the Roman Catholic church’s most senior cleric in the Holy Land said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “morally unacceptable”, after visiting the wartorn Palestinian territory.
“We have seen men holding out in the sun for hours in the hope of a simple meal,” Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told a news conference. “It’s morally unacceptable and unjustified.”
Irish premier Micheál Martin also called for the war in Gaza to end, describing the images of starving children as “horrific”. Mr Martin called for a surge in humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza.
In a social media post, he said: “The situation in Gaza is horrific. The suffering of civilians and the death of innocent children is intolerable.
“I echo the call by foreign ministers of 28 countries for all hostages to be released, and for a surge in humanitarian aid. This war must end and it must end now.”
Despite the high-profile criticism in recent days, aid agencies have criticised the lack of meaningful action by the governments who signed the joint statement, including the UK, against Israel.
Kristyan Benedict, of Amnesty International UK, said the British government’s “failure to take robust measures to prevent genocide is no accident”, adding that “as a state party to the genocide convention, the UK has a legal duty to prevent and punish genocide – a duty it is failing miserably to uphold”.
The growing international furore came as Israeli troops pushed into the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where a number of international aid organisations are based, in what appeared to be the latest effort to carve up the Palestinian territory with military corridors.
Deir al-Balah is the only city in the Gaza Strip that has not experienced major ground operations or suffered widespread devastation in 21 months of war, leading to speculation that the Hamas militant group holds large numbers of hostages there.
