U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Monday urgently appealed for a humanitarian cease-fire for Gaza, which he said is becoming a “graveyard” for hundreds of Palestinian children each day.
“The way forward is clear,” he told reporters at the United Nations. “A humanitarian cease-fire. Now.”
He said all parties must also respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, and that no party to an armed conflict is above it.
“This means the unconditional release of the hostages in Gaza — now,” he said of the 240 men, women and children Hamas abducted during their October 7 terror attack inside Israel.
“I will never relent in working for their immediate release,” he added.
Guterres said respecting international humanitarian law also means the protection of civilians — including not using civilians as human shields — hospitals, U.N. facilities, shelters and schools in Gaza and the scaling up of aid and fuel to the besieged territory.
“None of these appeals should be conditional on the other,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been emphatic that there will be no humanitarian pauses unless all the hostages are released.
Guterres said the “nightmare in Gaza” is not just a humanitarian crisis, but a “crisis of humanity” and said the parties to the conflict, as well as the international community, have a fundamental responsibility to stop the suffering.
On Monday, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza said the Palestinian death toll in the territory had reached 10,000 since Israel began attacks sparked by the Hamas assault in southern Israel October 7. Those numbers could not be independently verified.
The secretary-general expressed concern for the hundreds of children dying and being injured in Gaza every day, for the dozens of journalists who have been killed, and for U.N. aid workers. UNRWA, the agency that assists the Palestinians, has lost 89 staff since October 7. Some with members of their families.
“We must act now to find a way out of this brutal, awful, agonizing dead end of destruction,” Guterres said.
Monday the U.N. launched an aid appeal for $1.2 billion to assist 2.7 million people — the entire population of Gaza, plus a half million Palestinians in the West Bank, where tensions and violence have been rising.
The U.N. has appealed for all aid to be scaled up — only 25 trucks passed through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on Sunday. Less than 500 trucks carrying water, food and medical supplies have been allowed to enter Gaza since Israel started permitting limited aid through on October 21.
The U.N. Security Council will be briefed in a closed-door meeting Monday afternoon by the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, and U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths. The council has so far been unable to find consensus on a way to deal with the crisis, specifically on the need for humanitarian pauses in the fighting.
