Once again, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres has appealed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Guterres said that warring parties in Gaza are blatantly “ignoring international law,” leading to mounting human suffering, and that the international community has done little to stop it.
“The world is standing by as civilians, mostly women and children, are killed, maimed, bombarded, forced from their homes and denied access to humanitarian aid,” Guterres said.
What we are seeing in the Red Sea, all this demonstrates that it’s not enough. It’s very important to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It’s very important to have a humanitarian ceasefire,” he said.
“I repeat my call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and a process that leads to sustained peace for Israelis and Palestinians, based on a two-state solution.”
Additionally, the UN Secretary-General stated that the war in Gaza must be stopped before it pulls other countries into the conflict.
“We cannot have another war in Lebanon and we need to stop what’s happening in Gaza,” he said, adding that Lebanon, at the moment, is the most dangerous threat of spillover.
“We have the occupied West Bank where tensions are extremely high, and the incidents in the Red Sea. The best way to defend the Palestinians in Gaza is not to create the situation where prices go up, in which Egypt faces a dramatic situation of the Suez Canal,” he noted.
He said that he hopes Western intervention in the busy waterway will “lead to de-escalation by both sides.”
Also, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini said that he is shocked by the conditions in Gaza after three-and-a-half months of war.
Lazzarini told reporters, “Hundreds of thousands of people living now in the street, living in these plastic makeshift tents, sleeping on the concrete.”
“In some places, women have all but stopped eating or drinking because they don’t want to use the filthy restrooms. Diarrhoea and skin diseases are fast spreading. People are losing hope.
“They don’t see how they can continue to bring up their children in this type of environment. People start to have difficulties to project how the future will look like.”
Philippe Lazzarini
Vulnerable residents and internally displaced Palestinians are concerned that the much-needed assistance might not reach the designated areas given the continuous Israeli bombardment.
Israel Accused Of Restricting Freedom Of Expression
Meanwhile, 7amleh, The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, announced that since the war on Gaza began, Israeli authorities have been cracking down on Palestinians “for simply expressing their views or opinions on various online platforms, through a variety of measures including censorship, surveillance and arrests.”
The Palestinian digital rights group also said in a report that since October 7, Israel has introduced a “draconian legislation” to restrict freedom of expression and criticism of its actions in Gaza.
Social media platforms played a key role in facilitating what it called Israel’s oppressive measures, 7amleh said.
The most notable measures included mass content removals and extensive ‘shadowbanning’ of users criticising Israel or posting in support of Palestinians. During Israel’s war on Gaza, these content restrictions and removals soared to unprecedented levels,” it noted.
“Users of Meta’s platforms, including journalists, activists, media pages and those simply documenting reality on the ground or posting in support of Palestinian rights were subject to account banning, content removal and other restrictive measures.”
This came as Gaza has been under telecommunications blackout since January 12, 2024.
Digital rights activists say that this is the longest sustained telecoms disruption on record since the onset of the war, with most residents unable to contact the outside world for six days now.
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