A full-scale Israeli military operation in Rafah would deal a fatal blow to aid programs in Gaza, where humanitarian aid remains "totally inadequate", UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned, AFP reported.
Speaking to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Antonio Guterres said Gaza's southernmost city, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians are crammed into tent cities, is the "core of the humanitarian aid operation" in the Palestinian territory.
"An all-out Israeli offensive against the city would not only be terrifying for the more than one million Palestinian civilians sheltering there; it would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programs," he said.
His comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that his country intended to launch a ground invasion of Rafah in a bid for "total victory" over Hamas, whose October 7 attack sparked the war.
He said that once the ground invasion took place, victory would be only "weeks away" and that the eventual ceasefire being discussed in Doha would only delay the operation.
The war, which has been raging for more than four months, erupted after an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, which killed around 1,160 people in Israel.
Hamas fighters also took about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel.
According to the latest figures released by the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 29,692 people, mostly women and children.
Guterres stressed that "nothing can justify Hamas's deliberate killing, injury, torture and abduction of civilians, its use of sexual violence - or its indiscriminate firing of rockets at Israel."
"And nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people," he said.
Amid the growing humanitarian crisis, UNRWA, the UN's main aid agency for the Palestinians, has called for political action to prevent starvation in Gaza.
However, Guterres stressed that "humanitarian aid is still completely insufficient".
"I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire and for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages," he said.
He regretted that despite his urgent appeals to the UN Security Council to take all measures to "stop the bloodshed in Gaza and prevent escalation", it had not acted.
As one of the five permanent members of the 15-member council, the United States - Israel's biggest ally - has veto power, which it has used three times so far to prevent the body from calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Guterres warned of the consequences of the Council's lack of action on Gaza and its failure to act on the war in Ukraine because of the Russian veto.
This inaction has "seriously - perhaps fatally - undermined its authority. The council needs serious reform of its composition and working methods," he said. /BGNES
