UN chief says blocked Gaza aid is a ‘moral outrage’, calls for war to end

On a visit to the Rafah crossing, Antonio Guterres urges Israel to give people in Gaza unfettered access to humanitarian aid.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it is 'time to truly flood Gaza with life-saving aid' [Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]

Published On 23 Mar 202423 Mar 2024

The line of blocked aid trucks stuck on Egypt’s side of the border with the Gaza Strip while Palestinians face starvation on the other side is a “moral outrage”, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on a visit to the Rafah crossing.

“I have come to Rafah to shine a spotlight on the pain of Palestinians in Gaza,” the UN chief said on Saturday, addressing a news conference in El Arish, in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where much of the international relief for Gaza is stockpiled as Israel continues to block aid from entering.

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“Here, from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said.

“That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. Any further onslaught will make things even worse – worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for hostages and worse for all people in the region.”

The visit by Guterres, which is a part of his annual “solidarity trip” to Muslim countries during Ramadan, comes as Israel faces global pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been devastated by more than five months of war.

“You cannot see so many people being killed, you cannot see so much suffering without feeling hugely frustrated,” Guterres said while taking questions from reporters. “We don’t have the power to stop [the war in Gaza], I appeal to those who have the power to stop it to do it,” he added.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/23/un-chief-says-blocked-gaza-aid-is-a-moral-outage-calls-for-war-to-end