Palestinian UN envoy urges UN chief to stop Israel ‘crime against humanity’

The Palestinian United Nations envoy appealed to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday to do more to stop a “crime against humanity” by Israel, which has warned nearly half of the population of the Gaza Strip to relocate as it plans an assault.

“He has to do more. Whatever was done is not sufficient. We need all of us to do more to stop this crime against humanity,” Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour told reporters before a meeting of Arab Group ambassadors at the United Nations.

Countries urged Israel on Friday to hold off attacking northern Gaza, where more than a million civilians largely defied Israel’s order to evacuate before it goes after Hamas militants who slaughtered Israeli civilians last weekend.

The 15-member U.N. Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on the conflict later on Friday.

The United Nations said Israel’s military informed it late on Thursday that 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should move to the enclave’s south within 24 hours, in what Palestinians fear could be a precursor to a ground offensive.

Guterres has been in constant contact with Israeli authorities, urging them to “avert a humanitarian catastrophe,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Friday. The U.N. has called for Israel to rescind its relocation order.

“We need immediate humanitarian access throughout Gaza, so that we can get fuel, food and water to everyone in need. Even wars have rules,” Guterres told reporters later.

Dujarric said no aid was getting into the Gaza Strip “and our colleagues on the ground are telling us that the U.N.’s own supplies have now hit the bottom of the barrel.”

“We need to ensure full support for opening humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip to prevent a further loss of civilian life,” Dujarric told reporters. “It is vital” that Israel protect all civilians in Gaza, including those in U.N. shelters, he said.

‘PIVOTAL MOMENT’

Hamas carried out their deadliest attack in Israel’s history on Saturday, killing more than 1,300 people and taking scores of hostages to Gaza. Israel has responded with the most intensive air strikes of its 75-year conflict with the Palestinians. Gaza authorities said 1,799 people have been killed.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan criticized the U.N. response to Israel’s warning to residents in northern Gaza “to temporarily move south … to mitigate civilian harm.” He was speaking at an event Israel hosted at the U.N. on Friday with families of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.

“The U.N. should be praising Israel for these precautionary actions,” Erdan told U.N. diplomats at the event. “For years the U.N. has put its head in the sand in the face of Hamas’s terror build-up in Gaza.”

He said the United Nations and the Security Council were “facing one of their most pivotal moments,” adding: “Will they remain true to their founding values? Or will they empower genocidal terrorists? This shouldn’t be a question.”

Dujarric called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages being held in Gaza.

“And we need, of course, to avoid a spillover of this conflict to the West Bank and to the wider region,” he said.

Mansour said there was no safe place in Gaza.

“We need to stop this war immediately. We need to send convoys of food and medicine to help the people there and we need to stop this ethnic cleansing from taking place,” he said.