UNICEF denounces Israeli crimes in Gaza, says ‘silence is complicity’

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has denounced the months-long Israeli genocidal mass-killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, urging the global community not to turn a blind eye to the continued tragedy in the Palestinian land. 

In an interview with Al Jazeera news agency on Tuesday, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder referred to the current situation in Gaza as nothing less than a “bloodbath”, and called on the international community to mount pressure on Israel to end its brutal attacks on Gaza.

“I feel these safe zones are trying to prepare a narrative for continued massacres of children. Silence is complicity,” Elder said.

In an earlier interview, he insisted that there were “no safe zones” in Gaza, citing instances ranging from children being bombed in hospitals to the deaths of UN colleagues.

Elders had revealed to reporters in Geneva via video link from Cairo that there was nowhere across Gaza for the civilians to seek refuge.

It is impossible to create a so-called safe zone for civilians to flee to inside the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s bombing campaign, he insisted.

Israel had initially focused its attacks on the north of Gaza, but the regime forces have now dropped leaflets on parts of the south, telling Palestinian civilians there to flee to other parts.

“The so-called safe zones... are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this,” the UNICEF spokesman told reporters in Geneva via video link from Cairo.

The pretense that there is somewhere safe for people to flee to is "callous", he said.

He stressed that in a real safe zone, “you can guarantee the conditions of food, water, medicine and shelter.” Elder, who spent the past week or so in Gaza, stressed that none of that is assured in the areas designated as safe zones.

“These are entirely, entirely absent. You cannot overstate this. These are tiny patches of barren land, or they are street corners, they are sidewalks,” he said. “There is no water, no facilities, no shelter from the cold and the rain (and) there’s no sanitation.”

Elder pointed out that in the overcrowded shelters that most of the displaced in Gaza have flocked to there had been around one toilet for every 400 people.

“Now remove those people and put them in... the so-called safe places. It’s tens of thousands of people without a single toilet — not one — no clean water, nothing to drink,” he said. “Without water, without sanitation, without shelter the so-called safe zones risk becoming zones of disease.”

UN chief says Gaza becoming 'graveyard for children', urges immediate ceasefire

The UN secretary general says the Gaza Strip is turning into "a graveyard for children."

“The people of Gaza are in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world. We must not look away,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized at the Security Council.

Nonetheless, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the continuation of the war on Gaza until the Zionist forces achieve their entire tactical objective, regardless of Tel Aviv's strategic defeat due to the unprecedented Palestinian death toll.

"I am saying plainly and clearly: we will continue with the war until we achieve all its goals," the leader of the Apartheid regime declared earlier this week.

Israel unleashed its genocidal war on Gaza after Palestinian groups launched an operation on Oct. 7 in response to Israelis intensified decades-long atrocities and expansionist policy. The Israeli regime has vowed to continue its attacks until the complete annihilation of Hamas and total eradication of the resistance movement.

Gaza health officials said on Tuesday that at least 16,248 people, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women had been killed in Gaza by the Israeli war machine in the past two months.

In addition to the death toll, thousands of Gazans are still missing in the chaos and are feared to be buried under the rubble of the razed residential buildings.

The Tel Aviv regime forces have also cut off water, food, power, and fuel to Gaza where UN officials say citizens are at risk of starvation and disease as the dire situation is rapidly deteriorating into possibly the worst mass-killing of civilians, unprecedented within living memory.

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