By Beyza Binnur Donmez
GENEVA (AA) - The UN humanitarian office warned Friday that the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza may amount to atrocity crimes, as the humanitarian situation reaches a new low following the collapse of a ceasefire deal.
"The acts of war that we see bear the hallmarks of atrocity crimes," Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told a UN briefing in Geneva. "It has been 10 days of witnessing ... a callous disregard for human life and dignity.”
Laerke described a worsening toll on civilians, saying: "Hospitals are once again battlegrounds. Patients killed in their beds. Ambulances shot at and first responders killed," he said, adding that "hundreds of children and other civilians have been killed in Israeli air strikes."
More than 142,000 people have been displaced in recent days, many for the second or third time. "With no safe place to go to and no means to survive," Laerke said, adding that displacement orders now cover 18% of Gaza’s territory and "it is growing by the day."
About the humanitarian access, which has been cut off entirely, he said the progress that was made during the ceasefire has been reversed.
"We are back to where we were before -- just this time, it’s worse because of the complete shutdown of entry of supplies," he stressed.
"Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people," Laerke added.
"International law is clear ... yet the alerts that we issue in report after report reveal an utter lack of respect for the most basic principles of humanity."