By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - Israel's war on the besieged Gaza Strip is "part of the assault to end the Palestinian people as a nation," Palestine's UN envoy warned Friday amid Tel Aviv's expanding military offensive.
Riyad Mansour dismissed the notion that there is any doubt about Israel's war aims, saying "Are we supposed to pretend we don't know the objective is the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip, the dispossession, forcible displacement of the Palestinian people when so many Israeli representatives could not refrain from admitting it?"
Mansour made his appeal to the UN Security Council as the body tasked with ensuring international peace and security prepares to vote on a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The envoy said those who refuse to support the resolution "are refusing to call for the only thing that can put an end to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This is how Israel is conducting the war -- through atrocities."
"The shame is not on those calling for a ceasefire in the face of such atrocities. It haunts those refusing to do so. Israel's objective is clear. It is to force people out, and regardless of how many times some say it will not happen, everything confirms we were right from day one," he said.
"The Palestinian people will not die in silence. The Palestinian people will not die in vain. The Palestinian people deserve respect. Every people does, but we have earned it. We have paid the heaviest of prices to earn it. We have survived every attempt to annihilate us over a century with barely any means. Show us respect, not in words but in deeds," he added.
Over 17,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7 when Hamas carried out a cross-border attack on Israel. Roughly 70% of those killed have been women and children while over 46,000 others have been injured.
Official figures put the number of those killed in Israel during Hamas' attack at over 1,200.
Israel resumed its military offensive against Gaza on Dec. 1 after the end of a weeklong humanitarian pause with Hamas that facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid and the exchange of hostages held by Hamas, and Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Over 1.8 million Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier warned that they are "being told to move like human pinballs – ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival. But nowhere in Gaza is safe."
He was alluding to Israeli orders for Palestinians to evacuate areas they plan to bomb. Many who have done so were later killed in areas they moved to that they were told would be safer.
Guterres warned that the humanitarian support network in Gaza is facing "total collapse," and if it were to fail, there would be "devastating consequences" for the region.