UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Gaza, Lebanon update OHCHR

Middle East crisis: UN human rights office condemns spiralling violence

Amid reports of intensifying Israeli bombing in Lebanon and Gaza overnight and continuing Hezbollah rocket fire into Israel, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, called on Friday for an end to the “killing, destruction [and] bellicose posturing” by those in power.

“The situation for civilians on the ground in Lebanon, Gaza, Israel and Syria is getting worse by the day,” said Ravina Shamdasani, OHCHR spokesperson.

Speaking in Geneva, she described how the densely populated capital of Beirut “is increasingly being hit by Israeli airstrikes”. Hundreds have been killed and more than one million people have now fled their homes throughout the country, she told journalists, while Hezbollah and other armed groups “continue to fire rockets into Israel, resulting in the first civilian fatalities in the north since the most recent escalation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon last month”.

Healthcare centres and emergency workers have not been spared from the intensifying Israeli strikes, with 96 primary health care centres and clinics closed by 5 October, according to the Lebanese authorities. “We've had several reports also of airstrikes, targeting other medical centres and of paramedics as well as firefighters, being killed,” Ms. Shamdasani said.

Since 30 September, 49 healthworkers have been killed in nine confirmed attacks, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

Responding to reports from UN peacekeepers UNIFIL that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired on the Mission on Thursday, injuring two troops, Ms. Shamdasani insisted that States are obliged under international law “to ensure that they are not hit, that they are protected”.

UN peacekeepers are based in south Lebanon to support a return to stability under a 2006 Security Council mandate. Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and of Security Council resolution 1701, UNIFIL said in a statement following the incident, amid widespread IDF destruction of towns and villages in south Lebanon, and ongoing missile attacks on northern Israel.

“On 9 and 10 October, Hezbollah said it had launched at least 360 missiles from southern Lebanon into Israel,” Ms. Shamdasani said. “Two people were killed in a rocket attack on the border town of Kiryat Shmona on 9 October, a day after five others were injured in a rocket attack on Haifa.”

Meanwhile in Gaza, UN humanitarians have continued to warn that the situation for civilians is getting worse, as the Israeli military renews its push into the north where some 400,000 people face evacuation orders.

“Over the last week, the Israeli military has intensified operations in north Gaza, further severing the area from the rest of the Gaza Strip and risking afresh the lives of civilians in the areas,” Ms. Shamdasani said. “Intense strikes, shelling, quadcopter shootings and ground incursions have occurred over the past days, hitting residential buildings and groups of people, causing numerous casualties and once again, mass displacement of Palestinians in the area.”

As UN aid agencies and partners prepare to roll out the second phase of the mass polio vaccination campaign next week, the WHO’s Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Dr Rik Peeperkorn, underscored the impact of a chronic lack of humanitarian access to the enclave and in particular, the north.

“Many of the hospitals in the north are running out of fuel. Most of the UN and humanitarian missions are not happening to the north. They’re running out of a a few specific medical supplies and we are one year in this crisis,” Dr Peeperkorn said, as he confirmed that three relief missions north of Wadi Gaza had not made it this week. “So, we request again…that these humanitarian missions to the north, wherever, to the south, they need to happen.”

Gaza, Lebanon update OHCHR - WHO 11 October 2024

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