Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General has fiercely criticized Israel’s demand for relocating over one million people in northern Gaza within 24 hours, declaring it “extremely dangerous” and “impossible”. Guterres highlighted the significance of justifying the rules even at the times of conflict. Officials from the UN received notification from Israeli liaison officers that the whole northern Gaza population, almost one million, is required to be relocated to the southern part in the next 24 hours. The same instructions were applicable to all the staff, schools, healthcare centers, clinics and others located in the United Nations.
On Friday, Guterres told the reporters that, “Relocating more than one million civilians to a place with no water, food or accommodation from a highly populated place is very dangerous and not even possible in some cases, when the entire country is in total siege”. This statement was made by the UN Secretary-General before attending the Security Council meeting in the Middle East. He said that the Israeli Defense Forces after few days of airstrikes ordered the Palestinians in Gaza territory and its surroundings to migrate to the southern region.
The UN chief by expressing his concern said that, “the hospital in the southern part of Gaza is already filled with patients and further people will not be accepted from the north region. He said that the “health conditions are also at the edge and the mortuaries are overflowing.” Mr.Guterres claimed that nearly 11 healthcare staff on duty were killed and almost 34 attacks had happened on the healthcare facilities in a few days.
By explaining about the current scenario in Gaza as a dangerous situation, Guterres said that the whole territory is facing a water crisis because of the damage to the infrastructure and also to operate the desalination plants and power pumps, the availability of electricity is not there. Claiming that “Wars also have rules”, the UN chief said that there is a need for access to people throughout the Gaza region to get food, fuel and water to everyone. “All the hostages in the Gaza region should be released without any deal, the civilians should not be used as shields for protection, they should rather be protected. International humanitarian law and human rights law must be verified and respected,” he said.
