The UN humanitarian office in Geneva said on Friday the resumption of Israeli attacks on the defenseless Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip meant “hell on Earth has returned to Gaza.”
Israeli warplanes restarted nonstop airstrikes on Gaza as an extended week-long ceasefire between the regime and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas expired on Friday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday he regretted that military operations had resumed in Gaza after the collapse of the truce.
“I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza,” Guterres wrote on the X social media platform.
Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the “resumption of hostilities in Gaza is catastrophic.”
“I urge all parties and states with influence over them to redouble efforts, immediately, to ensure a ceasefire – on humanitarian and human rights grounds.”
Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office in Geneva, said the truce had seen significantly larger humanitarian convoys entering Gaza, even reaching north of Wadi Gaza, which prior to the pause had received almost no supplies. “With the resumption of war, we fear that the continuation of this (aid) is now in doubt.”
“The Rafah crossing is closed as of now. We need a resumption of a humanitarian pause, not a return to war.”
The World Health Organization has also sounded the alarm, warning about the grave situation of medical and relief operations in the Palestinian territory.
“We are extremely concerned about the resumption of violence,” the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories Richard Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Gaza.
As the Israelis have resumed airstrikes, hospitals are expected to be witnessing the most horrific scenes as Palestinian casualties turn up at relatively small hospitals “in their tens if not hundreds,” the senior WHO emergency officer Rob Holden told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Gaza.
Holden said Gaza’s “healthcare service is on its knees.”
Since October 7, Israel killed more than 15,000 people, mostly women and children, in Gaza.
AMK/Press TV
