A path must be found to stop the slaughter and famine in Gaza
Real-time video feeds have brought the world pictures of the starving children in Gaza. But unlike the fleeting pangs of conscience we may feel, their hunger pains endure. Hopefully news that the UN Security Council has demanded a ceasefire in the war-ravaged enclave will mark at least a beginning to the end of the suffering.
It is the council’s first demand to halt the fighting. Washington did not veto the move, signifying its growing divergence with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-hardline approach.
Tel Aviv registered its displeasure at the abstention by cancelling a top-level meeting with Biden administration officials. But now is surely a time for ramping up engagement, not shying from it.
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children. We are facing the immediate grim prospect of famine claiming hundreds of thousands more.
It does not take a military historian to recognise that starvation and disease were the original weapons of mass destruction. Far from consigning this horror to the past, our genius for destruction has developed a high-tech tool box to accelerate the process, as we have witnessed in wars around the globe.
To date, Israel has been impervious to ever more catastrophic warnings on the humanitarian consequences of intensifying attacks.
The UN call comes as its UNRWA agency chief, Philippe Lazzarini, revealed it has barred it from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza.
This is where the threat of famine is at its highest. Tel Aviv even insists it is intent on an all-out assault on Rafah, with its 1.4 million refugees already jammed into a tiny area, fleeing the bombardment.
All imports of food and medicine into Gaza were stopped by Israel at the start of the war. Later it allowed aid deliveries in, but agencies say security checks, and trying to get through the fighting, make the task next to impossible.
“Nothing justifies denying men, women and children their right to food and medicine,” said Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has doubled down on the need for the ceasefire resolution to be implemented. He also demanded the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”. But thus far, Mr Guterres has been a voice in the wilderness.
“People around the world are outraged about the horrors we are all witnessing,” he said recently. “I carry the voices of the vast majority of the world. We have seen enough. We have heard enough.”
His frustration is understandable. It is time for Tel Aviv to be pressed to pay attention. A path to stop the slaughter and prevent famine must be found.
Gandhi once said: “The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.”
The chance for the UN’s “conscience” to assert itself must not be missed.