NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — The UN Security Council held an emergency session on Wednesday to discuss the urgent humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The meeting followed a UN-supported food security group’s official declaration of mass starvation of civilians and famine in Gaza, as well as an IDF-targeted double-tap strike on Nasser hospital, which killed journalists and humanitarian workers.
Several council members, including the representative of the State of Palestine, denounced the famine and urged concrete action to end the suffering in Gaza.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Massour began his statement with a plea from children in Gaza.
“I just want to share with you that maybe thousands of Palestinian children are with us in this room,” Massour said.“I see them, I feel them. They are angels. They’re coming to you and listening to all of you.”
“[T]hose angels who do not know hatred, they are extending their hands to you. We want peace, we want a ceasefire, we want food, we want medicine, we want to stop this war permanently, we want to live in peace with all the children in the region, we don’t want the pain that we endure to be endured by anyone else,” he added.
Algeria’s ambassador Amar Bendjama described the suffering in Gaza at “a level of barbarity that defies imagination.”
He paid tribute to AP freelance journalist Mariam Dagga, one of the five reporters killed by Israeli military in the August 25 attack on Gaza’s Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The envoy read to the council a letter Dagga wrote to her 13-year-old son days before she died, saying that these words “carry more weight than any official statement.”
“Ghaith, you are the heart and soul of your mother. When I die, I want you to pray for me, not to cry for me. I want you never, never to forget me. I did everything to keep you happy and safe. And when you grow, when you marry, and when you have a daughter, name her Mariam after me.”
Bendjama also warned that the famine in Gaza could only get worse in September if the international community and the security council do not take immediate action.
At the same time, U.S. interim representative to the UN Dorothy Shea cast doubt on factual evidence of famine. Without mentioning a name or providing further details, she said that “one of the report’s key authors has a lengthy record of bias against Israel, including openly justifying the Houthi’s terrorist attacks on Israeli civilian targets.”
She then went on to praise the recently formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) for distributing nearly “140 million meals.”
However, facts on the ground and eyewitness accounts point to a man-made and real famine.
The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report highlighted the GHF’s lack of coordination in distributing as well as “repeated denials of requests for humanitarian access” from other organizations.
Retired Green Beret Lt. Colonel Tony Aguilar has described many serious crimes he witnessed perpetrated by the IDF during the period that he was on the ground serving in Gaza with the GHF.
In a recent interview with Dialogue Works, Aguilar confirmed that there are now only three active GHF distribution sites.
“Secure distribution site number four in central Gaza, north of Berish, which is just south of the Netzarim corridor along the Wadi Gaza and the Salah al-Din Road. That’s now taken over by the IDF and that is a sniper base,” Aguilar said.“They’ve [Israeli Defense Forces] established from that position sniper positions to fire into the north. That is no longer a distribution site. So now there are only three distribution sites remaining.”
Russia’s deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyansky accused GHF of “violence hidden behind good intentions.” He further assessed, based on reports, that the targeting of civilians is “occurring not only regularly, but also precisely.”
“People in their utter despair spend the night at distribution points and in response get bullets in them,” Polyansky said.
Several members of the security council urged a call for action during the meeting.
Having previously blasted Israel’s new humanitarian aid system “inhumane” and calling for an end to restrictions, UK ambassador Barbara Woodward condemned the attack on Nasser hospital and urged “transparent investigations which hold those responsible to account in a meaningful way.”
Palestine’s ambassador called for the need of a “protection force” to save the Palestinian people, and Algerian ambassador Bendjama warned of the lack of inaction on the part of the UN Security Council.
“Will this council persist as a theater of lamentation endlessly echoing speeches while Gaza burns for lack of actions?”
Pakistan Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad cited a resolution by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation calling for the invoking of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which calls for measures to implement use of force to restore international peace and security.
He warned that “every moment of inaction deepens the suffering that we are all here talking about. It multiplies the grief and tears apart the very fabric of international law. The world is watching. History will not forgive delay. It will not forget inaction.”
Members repeated the same phrase that “no one is safe in Gaza.”
With the lives of families and children destroyed from the latest attacks, even religious sites are marked for destruction, as LifeSiteNews has previous reported on the state of clergy in Holy Family Parish and the Missionaries of Charity being issued evacuation orders.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has employed various means against Palestinians in the enclave with deaths climbing up to 61,599 and injuries to 154,088. Numerous studies actually indicate that these confirmed figures are significantly undercounted.
