The word came as the U.N. reported more than half a million people in Gaza – a quarter of the population – are starving.
Rafah, Gaza Strip — More than 20,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry said Friday. It was the latest indication of the staggering cost of the conflict as Israel expands its ground offensive and orders tens of thousands more people to leave their homes.
The deaths, amounting to nearly 1% of the territory’s prewar population, are just one measure of the devastation wrought by has displaced nearly 85% of Gaza’s people and leveled wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave.
More than half a million people in Gaza – a quarter of the population – are starving, according to a report Thursday from the United Nations and other agencies describing the crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege of the territory in response to Hamas‘ Oct. 7 attack.
Despite the emergency, a U.N. Security Council vote on aid deliveries and terms for a cease-fire was delayed again late Thursday, after days of high-level negotiations.
The United States, which has veto power, has pushed back against calls for an immediate cease-fire and giving the U.N. sole responsibility for inspecting aid deliveries. Israel, citing security grounds, insists it needs to be able to screen goods entering Gaza.
The U.S. said it would back a revised resolution that calls for „creating the conditions“ for a cease-fire, rather than an immediate end to fighting. Other countries support a stronger text and said diplomats would need to consult their governments before a vote, which was set for Friday morning.
Martin Griffiths, the U.N. humanitarian affairs chief, lamented the world’s inaction.
„That such a brutal conflict has been allowed to continue and for this long – despite the widespread condemnation, the physical and mental toll and the massive destruction – is an indelible stain on our collective conscience,“ he wrote in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.Gazans‘ forced movements
Israel, shielded by the United States, has resisted international pressure to scale back its offensive and has said it would press on until Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years, has been destroyed.
The military has said that months of fighting lie ahead in southern Gaza, an area packed with the vast majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, many of whom were ordered by Israel to flee combat in the north in earlier stages of the war.
