Carnage in Gaza cannot be allowed to continue, UN humanitarian chief says

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - GAZA — The horror suffered by civilians in Gaza has intensified each day and the "carnage" must stop, the United Nations' humanitarian chief said after Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa hospital.

"As the carnage in Gaza reaches new levels of horror every day, the world continues to watch in shock as hospitals come under fire, premature babies die, and an entire population is deprived of the basic means of survival," said Martin Griffiths, the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. "This cannot be allowed to continue."

Griffiths also released a "comprehensive" plan to rein in the carnage and urged the international community to support it. "The world must act before it is too late," he said.

Israel said its soldiers have uncovered what the army is calling “military equipment used by Hamas” during a raid at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Israeli forces entered Al-Shifa in the early hours of Wednesday, after signaling for weeks their intention to move on the complex, which they claim is the site of an underground command and control center for Hamas.

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military operation at the hospital “is still underway and will take time."

“It’s a complicated area, which still has many people. We need to conduct in the right pace,” he said.

Doctors and health officials in the Hamas-controlled enclave have consistently rejected accusations that the hospital was the site of a command center.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said soldiers located a room in the hospital where they found, “technological assets, along with military and combat equipment used by Hamas.”

“In another department in the hospital, the soldiers located an operational command center and technological assets belonging to Hamas,” the statement went on, which indicated, the statement said, “that the terrorist organization uses the hospital for terrorist purposes."

CNN is trying to contact the hospital to speak to doctors there, but phone calls are not going through.

Israel is under significant international pressure to prove its claims about Hamas's infiltration of the hospital, in order to justify some of its military decisions — which could otherwise constitute a possible serious violation of international humanitarian law.

There is certainly no indication yet that troops have uncovered a multi-level tunnel structure with underground chambers — of the kind illustrated in an animation presented by the army spokesman at a briefing almost three weeks ago.

Hamas responded to earlier comments from the Israeli army – that troops had found weapons inside the hospital – as a blatant lie and propaganda.

The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution calling for a series of humanitarian pauses in Gaza.

Twelve states voted in favor of adopting the resolution during Wednesday's session. Three countries — the US, Russia, and the UK — abstained from the vote.

The resolution calls “for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable, consistent with international humanitarian law, the full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access for United Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners.”

The nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch praised the resolution's adoption.

“The UN Security Council just sent a rare and powerful message to Israel, Hamas and other armed groups that compliance with international humanitarian law is non-negotiable. So far, there has been widespread disregard for civilians by all parties. That the US finally stopped paralyzing the council on Israel and Palestine so this resolution on the plight of children in Gaza could move forward should be a wake-up call to Israeli authorities that global concern, even among its allies, is strong," Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. — CNN