United Nations – U.N. Says Israel Soon Responsible For Displaced Palestinians In Gaza, Suggests Daily ‘Pauses’ In Attacks

    16

    Palestinians gather near a burning building that police said was destroyed by an Israeli Air strike in Gaza City July 31, 2014.  ReutersUnited Nations – As Israel warns more Gaza neighborhoods to evacuate, a top U.N. envoy told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday that Israel would be required under international law to take responsibility for helping Palestinians civilians in any further large-scale displacements.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    The United Nations is struggling to cope with a flood of some 220,000 Palestinian civilians into shelters. They have come under fire during three weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants who dominate Gaza.

    Speaking from Gaza City, Pierre Krähenbühl, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the impoverished enclave of 1.8 million Palestinians was facing a precipice. Krähenbühl said he was alarmed to hear that Israel had warned more neighborhoods in Gaza to evacuate ahead of military action.

    “Should further large-scale displacement indeed occur, the occupying power, according to international humanitarian law, will have to assume direct responsibility to assist these people,” he told the 15-member Security Council.

    “With as many as 2,500 displaced people residing in (each U.N.) school and an average of 80 people to a classroom, we have exceeded the tolerable limits we can accommodate,” he said.

    According to the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war and occupations, an occupying power must “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” ensure public health, hygiene, food and medical supplies for the civilians under occupation.

    Eight U.N. employees have been killed since Israel launched its offensive on July 8 after Hamas rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Dozens of people have been killed in attacks on U.N. schools sheltering civilians, while caches of rockets have been found in vacant U.N. schools in Gaza on three occasions.

    “The reality of Gaza today is that no place is safe,” U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos told the U.N. Security Council. “We have all watched in horror the desperation of children, of civilians as they have come under attack.”
    Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor (top) listens as Valerie Amos, United Nations Under-Secretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (seen on screens) briefs a U.N. Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, at U.N. headquarters in New York, July 31, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Segar
    She said 80 percent of the more than 1,300 Palestinians killed were civilians, including 251 children, while three Israeli civilians and 56 Israeli soldiers had died. Amos said nearly a quarter of the Palestinian population were displaced.

    “The relief effort is stretched,” Amos said. “Until a longer-term ceasefire is agreed, we need more humanitarian pauses to enable us to reach those in need.”

    Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour accused Israel of carrying out a genocide, while Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor accused Islamist Hamas militants – blacklisted as a terrorist group by many Western countries – of using civilians as human shields.

    “When you put 1.8 million Palestinian civilians in this huge prison, denying them food … denying them electricity, denying them safe places, denying them adequate medical facilities, denying them clean water – what are you doing? Isn’t that genocide?” Mansour told reporters.

    Prosor described the humanitarian situation as troubling and said Israel was “genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people.”


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    16 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    9 years ago

    Right right right…The un(as in un) doesn’t need to give out any more declarations. We know it from the start…Israel this, Israel that……………who is paying attention by now to un (as in un-civilized,undemocratic-undisputably anti semetic,unWORTHY OF PAYING ATTENTION TO. HAVE A GOOD DAY un.

    curious
    curious
    9 years ago

    Tell Hamas to pay! UN – WHAT a joke!
    Please throw those Jew haters out of NY!

    Geulah
    Geulah
    9 years ago

    Israel should follow the Geneva conventions as soon as Hamas reads and ratifies them. Of course that won’t be anytime soon.

    Nissim613
    Nissim613
    9 years ago

    Perhaps its time for the Palestinians to stop occupying our Territory

    howdyoulikethat
    howdyoulikethat
    9 years ago

    If anyone is occupying Gaza it’s obviously Hama’s.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    9 years ago

    Actually, no. The obligations to follow the Conventions applies to all signatories even if their opponents are not signatories.

    9 years ago

    No word or concern from the anti Semites at the UN about hamas’s war crimes, of course. All they obsess about is big, bad Israel,

    Teddybear
    Teddybear
    9 years ago

    Who will pay all de damage in Israel?

    newtransplant
    newtransplant
    9 years ago

    I keep saying that they need a dp camp enclosed with barbed wire in Israel, that way they are protecting the Palestinians while containing any rebels.

    TexasJew
    TexasJew
    9 years ago

    After the IDF is finished in Gaza they should take care of the UN.

    Liepa
    Liepa
    9 years ago

    The UN should go shnorr from their muslim brethren, Qatar, Turkey et al.

    ezisk
    ezisk
    9 years ago

    Israel should have taken out the electric in the beginning they don’t pay their
    Bill and expect for free. How long would con ed supply electricity
    For free.

    ablydec
    ablydec
    9 years ago

    How many Palestinian children were killed in SYRIA today? And who even asks about them?