UN Security Council 'must ensure' long-waited cease-fire resolution in Gaza not 'act of meaningless political theatre': Doctors Without Borders

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - The head of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urged the UN Security Council on Thursday to ensure that a cease-fire resolution reached on the Gaza Strip would not be an "act of meaningless political theatre."

"What the people of Gaza need is an immediate and sustained cease-fire. It took too long for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution for a cease-fire, now they must ensure that this was not an act of meaningless political theatre," Christopher Lockyear said at a news conference in Geneva.

Reiterating the urgent need for the implementation of an "immediate and sustained" cease-fire, Lockyear said: "The ask is simple, yet urgent: Stop indiscriminate attacks on civilians, medical staff, and health facilities. Allow unhindered humanitarian aid into Gaza."

He stressed that more access all around Gaza is needed, particularly in the north.

"And the prospects of what a Rafah ground invasion would do for humanitarians trying to continue to provide access in the south is terrifying,” he said.

Regarding attacks against humanitarian workers, he said all humanitarian organizations request green lights prior to moving into a location "yet we have had convoys attacked while going to the north."

Lockyear said his medical charity had two shelters hosting staff that were targeted, resulting in family members of our staff being killed, and others injured.

"I conclude by paying tribute to all aid workers in Gaza and around the world, who with a great deal of self-sacrifice, devote their lives to helping people in need," he said.

His remarks came after an Israeli strike killed seven members of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) food charity in the Gaza Strip earlier this week. They were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK and Palestine as well as a US-Canada dual citizen.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas, which killed less than 1,200 people.

Nearly 33,000 Palestinians have since been killed and over 75,000 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

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 is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked Tel Aviv to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.

“Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in,” said the ICJ.