Security Council members express concern over genocide in Gaza.
According to Al Jazeera, the UN Security Council meeting was held after last week’s attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza and the arbitrary arrest of its director, Hussam Abu Safiya.
“The deliberate targeting of medical staff, patients and the wounded in hospitals is contrary to all principles of humanitarian law and has no justification,” Pakistan’s UN ambassador Asim Iftikhar told a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East on Friday local time.
Iftikhar said that nowhere in the world is international humanitarian law “trampled on” like in Gaza, noting that Israel’s actions are unjustified and require immediate accountability.
The Pakistani representative added: “The scale of this genocidal campaign is staggering. Its purpose is undeniable. Homes, schools, hospitals and even the cultural heritage of Gaza have been destroyed. Even the UN and its staff have not been spared. This is not a war.”
“This is a campaign of dispossession, ethnic cleansing and extermination, indiscriminate bombing of civilians and systematic destruction of vital infrastructure,” he said. These are calculated actions aimed at wiping out entire populations from their land.
The Pakistani ambassador also called on the Security Council to act responsibly and not “turn a blind eye” to this tragedy. He added: “Silence is complicity. Israel must abide by international humanitarian law.”
Nicolas de Riviere, France’s ambassador to the United Nations, also said that France condemned the recent Israeli military operations that targeted several hospitals, especially Kamal Adwan Hospital.
He said: “Israel must abide by international humanitarian law. This requires respecting and protecting medical personnel and infrastructure.”
Urging Israel to agree to the delivery of humanitarian aid, de Riviere said that all crossings must be open and humanitarian convoys and workers must be protected.
Ammar Benjameh, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Algeria to the United Nations and President of the Security Council, also said: “The continuous Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, has a clear and worrying objective, which is ethnic cleansing, especially in northern Gaza.” He said: “The aim of the Israeli occupying power is to destroy the resistance of the Palestinian people, we must act together to end this tragedy.”