A spokesperson for the humanitarian organisation Oxfam has called on the UN to use all means available to end Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza.
Bushra Khalidi, head of global humanitarian policy at Oxfam International, stated Thursday to the UN Security Council that the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was “failing.” She also called for all means to be used to end Israel’s illegal occupation, emphasising that the problem is not a lack of “knowledge “of the scale of the destruction, but in “action.”
“I am one of the few Palestinian women able to access this chamber,” she said, adding that “I share this not because my story is exceptional. But because it reflects a wider Palestinian reality. Gaza is not separate from Jerusalem or the West Bank. It is governed by the same system of Israel’s unlawful occupation.”
According to her, Israeli armed forces continue to kill Palestinians, as Gaza is “being carved up again, with more of its entire population squeezed into a shrinking fraction of the Strip,” leaving civilians “trapped, displaced, hungry, unprotected.”
“Palestinians are being denied the basic conditions to survive,” she stated, adding that the Council had been informed of the scale of the destruction for almost three years, calling on council members to move from recording to holding those responsible to account.
“Peace cannot be measured by declarations,” she said, adding: “It must be measured by whether people can live. Whether parents can feed their children, families can sleep without fear, people can access clean water, patients receive medical care, and communities rebuild.”
According to her, the humanitarian infrastructure required for recovery has been subject to deliberate destruction. At the same time, the work of authoritative bodies such as UNRWA has been blocked, despite their transparency, accountability, successful audits and strict adherence to humanitarian principles. She also called on the Council to take appropriate measures and hold the parties to account immediately.
“Not after further political negotiations, not after disarmament, not as a reward for compliance. Now. If benchmarks are ignored or dismissed, this Council must act by using all available political, diplomatic and legal tools to end atrocities, to end the occupation,” she affirmed.
She drew attention to two dates: the 1,000th day of the war, which falls on 3 July, and the 19th anniversary of the Israeli blockade of Gaza this month. Against this backdrop, Khalidi stated that the views of the Palestinians themselves must be taken into account first and foremost when making any decisions regarding the future of the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported that 1,005 Palestinians had been killed as a result of Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and the militant group Hamas was reached last October.
