Gaza suffering ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ amid Israeli onslaught: Morocco

By Anadolu staff

RABAT, Morocco (AA) – The Gaza Strip is suffering a “humanitarian catastrophe” amid an Israeli military offensive on the enclave, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said Tuesday.

“Gaza is going through an unprecedented crisis and a humanitarian catastrophe that the international community can’t continue to turn a blind eye to,” Bourita said in a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

He called for an immediate and durable cessation of the Israeli war on Gaza and reiterated calls for protecting civilians and access to sufficient humanitarian aid for Gaza’s population.

The top diplomat also called for preventing the displacement of Palestinians from their lands and establishing a political horizon to revive the two-state solution and create a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 29,878 Palestinians have since been killed and over 70,000 others injured, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling this January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio