WHO tells UNSC: Gaza polio plan ‘not perfect’ but staff committed to rollout
This was a welcome announcement for the UN Security Council and the international community that had been voicing increasing alarm over the possibility of the spread of polio among the children of Gaza.
The announcement came just before the UNSC meeting that was called by the United Kingdom and Switzerland who are very concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. The WHO – briefing council members – said that the agreement is not perfect, not ideal. But it is something that they can work with.
They have divided the Gaza Strip into three zones: the middle, south and north, and they will spend three days at a minimum in each of those zones trying to reach 640,000 children under the age of 10.
That is just the first dose. There is a second dose that they will have to do as well. And they have gotten an agreement from Israel if they need to go an extra day beyond the three days so they can do that. They say that’s very likely something that they will need to do.
They have more than 2,100 workers ready to go and make this happen in very difficult circumstances. But they are committed and they are relieved at least at this baby step forward given the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Palestinian ambassador tells UNSC ‘humanity unravelling’ in Israel’s war on Gaza
Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s representative to the United Nations, has warned the UN Security Council (UNSC) that the world is witnessing the “unravelling” of humanity and the rule of law in Gaza as Israel carries out genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In a lengthy letter to the council, Mansour said, “Nothing is sacred, not even the life of a child, nothing too shameless, too deranged, too vicious for the occupying army to commit” in Gaza.
“Israel must be stopped, and the international community must act decisively. Every single day [Israel] proves that it has zero regard for international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, nor any regard for the Charter and authority of the UN,” he said.
Read our letter below delivered to the @UN just #NOW: “Worsening Humanitarian Catastrophe in Gaza and Israeli Invasions in the West Bank”👇@antonioguterres @UN_PGA #UNRWA #polio #WestBank #Palestine #Gaza pic.twitter.com/M286FdIXNf
— State of Palestine (@Palestine_UN) August 29, 2024
UN official says war on Gaza challenges world’s commitment to ‘international legal order’
Joyce Msuya, acting UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, has told the UN Security Council of the severe hardships in providing aid to desperate people in Gaza and Israel’s orders to forcibly dislocate the population that “appear to defy the requirements of international humanitarian law”.
“We cannot plan more than 24 hours in advance because we struggle to know what supplies we will have, when we will have them or where we will be able to deliver,” Msuya told the UNSC.
“Civilians are hungry. They are thirsty. They are sick. They are homeless. They have been pushed beyond … what any human being should bear,” she said.
“More than 88 percent of Gaza’s territory has come under an [Israeli] order to evacuate at some point,” Msuya said, adding that civilians, “in a state of limbo”, were being forced into an area equivalent to just 11 percent of the Gaza Strip.
“What we have witnessed over the past 11 months … calls into question the world’s commitment to the international legal order that was designed to prevent these tragedies,” she added.
“It forces us to ask: What has become of our basic sense of humanity?”
