New york: UN Secretary General Ant³nio Guterres has strongly criticized Israel’s further escalation of the Gaza conflict, as it launched its offensive in Gaza City on Tuesday. ‘What happens in Gaza today is horrendous. We are seeing massive destruction of neighbourhoods now, the systematic destruction of Gaza City,’ Guterres said in New York. He stated that it was violence on a scale he has not experienced in any conflict during his nearly nine-year tenure as secretary general. ‘The truth is that this is something that it is morally, politically and legally intolerable,’ said Guterres.
According to Ghana News Agency, Guterres’ remarks came after an independent commission of inquiry of the UN Human Rights Council said earlier Tuesday that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Four of the five genocidal acts, listed in the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, have been carried out, the three-member commission has determined. The panel cited the following acts: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately creating living conditions intended to destroy the Palestinian population in whole or in part, and measures aimed at preventing births.
The 72-page report stated that indirect or circumstantial evidence related to conduct by Israeli political and military authorities, showed a ‘specific intent to commit genocide.’ Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, said ‘Israel categorically rejects the libellous rant’ of the report. He said the report made no mention of the terrorist acts of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas and accused the commission members of anti-Semitic bias.
Guterres stopped short of using the term genocide himself, saying a corresponding judicial decision was needed, but he stressed, ‘History will remember the fact that we were in the first line to fight for the defence of the interests of the Palestinian people.’ The UN chief asserted that this is not a matter of wording. ‘And nobody has described this reality . in a more dramatic way than the UN and sorry to say, myself.’
In the upcoming UN general debate, he stressed that he would also like to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, if he wishes. However, there are no plans for this. The Israeli government has declared the Portuguese secretary general as persona non grata, due to his criticism of the Gaza conflict.
The Israeli army began its expected ground offensive in Gaza City during the night. Following orders from the political leadership, Israeli troops have ‘expanded the ground operation into the Hamas stronghold, Gaza City,’ a spokesman said on Tuesday. He called it a ‘gradual manoeuvre’ involving both air and ground forces, that is aimed at rooting out Hamas fighters hiding in the extensive tunnel network that lies under the Gaza Strip’s largest city. Israel estimates that up to 3,000 combat-ready members of the Islamist militant group are present in Gaza City.
The spokesman said troops have been operating on the outskirts of the city for weeks and began moving towards the city centre on Monday evening. Israeli warplanes carried out near-continuous strikes on the metropolis overnight, accompanied by artillery fire, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. ‘Gaza is burning,’ Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on Telegram, vowing Israel would not relent or back down ‘until the mission is completed.’
Israel’s Security Cabinet approved the takeover of Gaza City in August. International aid organizations have repeatedly warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the war-torn Palestinian territory, which is home to around 2 million people. The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 abducted. Israel says 48 hostages remain in Gaza, 20 of them believed to be alive. The Hamas-run health authority in Gaza says more than 64,800 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The tally does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, but the figures are regarded as broadly credible by the United Nations.