The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations has issued a vehement condemnation of the Israeli regime’s underway indiscriminate war against the Gaza Strip, and its threat to bring the entire coastal sliver under an all-out siege.
“Such blatant dehumanization and attempts to bomb a people into submission, to use starvation as a method of warfare, and to eradicate their national existence are nothing less than genocidal,” Riyad Mansour wrote in a letter to the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
“These acts constitute war crimes,” he added.
Calling up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists, the Israeli regime has declared a “long” war on Gaza in response to Operation al-Aqsa Storm. Gaza’s resistance movements initiated the operation on Saturday in response to the occupying regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.
The Israeli war has so far killed 900 Palestinians, including 260 children and 230 women, and injured as many as 4,600 others.
The military campaign has seen the regime leveling entire districts and featured its using banned white phosphorous munitions against densely-populated neighborhoods.
Earlier, Israeli Minister for Military Affairs Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a “total blockade” to stop food and fuel from reaching Gaza, home to 2.3 million people. Gallant also said Israel was battling “beastly people.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he was “deeply distressed” by Israel’s announcement of the complete siege. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza was extremely dire before these hostilities; now it will only deteriorate exponentially,” Guterres said.