The United Nations' top Middle East envoy told the U.N. Security Council after a visit to the Gaza Strip this week that what he saw was "shocking and unsustainable," and that the humanitarian situation is "desperate."
"I cannot stress enough how urgently we need a deal that will bring about a humanitarian cease-fire and the release of hostages," Tor Wennesland told the council Thursday from Jerusalem.
On Tuesday, the 15-nation council failed to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire due to a veto from the United States. Thirteen council members supported the text proposed by Algeria, while Britain abstained.
Wennesland said the humanitarian operation in Gaza faces many obstacles, with the number of aid trucks well below the target of 500 a day.
"We need more safety measures, greater security and the tools and access points to scale up aid, particularly in the north," he said, adding that the acute shortages of food, water, medicine and shelter have resulted in a desperation that has led to a "near total breakdown in law and order."
Israel denies it is hindering or limiting the delivery of aid and has accused Hamas, in some cases, of diverting it.
Wennesland also appealed for the safety of U.N. convoys and compounds, as there have been scores of strikes on U.N.-run shelters, and an aid convoy was hit by Israeli naval fire earlier this month. The U.N. has lost 160 staffers — the most in its history.
On Tuesday, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said an Israeli tank fired on its clearly marked staff shelter in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. The wife and daughter-in-law of a staffer were killed, and six other people were severely burned, including children.
"Despite our precautions, our building was struck not only by a tank shell but by intense gunfire," MSF Secretary-General Christopher Lockyear told council members. "Some were trapped in the burning building while active shooting delayed ambulances from reaching them."
He said this was not an isolated incident.
"This is all too familiar — Israeli forces have attacked our convoys, detained our staff and bulldozed our vehicles, hospitals have been bombed and raided," he said. "Now, for a second time, one of our staff shelters has been hit. This pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence."
Five MSF staff members have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on Hamas following the October 7 terror attacks in southern Israel. The U.S. and EU-designated terror group captured some 240 hostages during that attack, while killing 1,200 people.
In grim testimony, Lockyear said the patients MSF is treating have catastrophic injuries, including crushed limbs and severe burns, which demand sophisticated care and rehabilitation that is not available. He said women are giving birth in tents, and surgeons are performing amputations without anesthesia, even on children.
"Our surgeons are running out of basic gauze to stop their patients from bleeding out," he said. "They use it once, squeeze out the blood, wash it, sterilize it, and reuse it for the next patient."
Only 12 of Gaza's hospitals are still partially functioning. Several have been raided by Israeli forces seeking to root out Hamas fighters and rescue hostages.
"The excuse given is that medical facilities have been used for military purposes," Lockyear said. "Yet we have seen zero independently verified evidence of this."
He chastised the Security Council for repeatedly failing to demand a cease-fire and singled out the United States for its veto.
"We are appalled by the willingness of the United States to use its powers as a permanent council member to obstruct efforts to adopt the most evident of resolutions — one demanding an immediate and sustained cease-fire," he said.
Lockyear said despite the attack on the MSF shelter, his teams are back at work, risking their lives for their patients.
"What are you willing to risk?" he asked the council.
Lockyear's testimony comes a day after a consortium of 19 U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations known as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee issued their own statement calling on Israel to facilitate aid operations to Gaza.
"We are calling on Israel to fulfil its legal obligation, under international humanitarian and human rights law, to provide food and medical supplies and facilitate aid operations, and on the world's leaders to prevent an even worse catastrophe from happening," they said.
