Gaza is becoming a "graveyard for children" as Israel continues to carry out indiscriminate attacks, targeting civilian infrastructure in the blockaded enclave, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday.
"We must act now to find a way out of this brutal, awful, agonizing dead end of destruction," Guterres told reporters, and again called for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.
Israel has struck Gaza from the air, imposed a total siege, restricted the delivery of vital humanitarian aid supplies and fuel and launched a ground invasion. Palestinian health authorities said the death toll in Gaza exceeds 10,000, mostly women and children.
"Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day," Guterres said.
He said Israel has been committing clear violations of international humanitarian law. He said the U.N. needs $1.2 billion to help deliver aid to 2.7 million people in Gaza and the West Bank.
"Ground operations by the Israel Defense Forces and continued bombardment are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and U.N. facilities – including shelters. No one is safe," Guterres told reporters.
The U.N.'s emergency response agency said late last week that $1.2 billion was needed to meet the urgent needs of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
This is four times the amount first requested by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in early October.
The U.N. chief expressed his deep concern about increasing anti-Semitism and growing hatred against Muslims.
He also said that the conflict threatened to widen.
"We are already witnessing a spiral of escalation from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Yemen. This escalation must stop," he said.
"Cool heads and diplomatic efforts must prevail."
Guterres said 89 people working with the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) had been killed in Gaza, which he described as the highest toll for U.N. aid workers, higher "than in any comparable period in the history of our organization."
Aid trucks have been trickling into Gaza from Egypt via Rafah, the main crossing that does not border Israel. But U.N. officials have repeatedly said this was insufficient for Gaza's civilian population of about 2.3 million, more than 1 million of whom have been made homeless by Israel's bombardment.
"The trickle of assistance does not meet the ocean of need," Guterres said. "The Rafah crossing alone does not have the capacity to process aid trucks at the scale required."
Only around 400 trucks with relief supplies had been able to enter the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks, the U.N. chief lamented. Before the war, around 500 per day entered the Palestinian territory.
Urgently needed fuel – which is vital to keeping hospitals open – could not be brought in at all, Guterres told journalists in New York on Monday.
The United Nations last week said more than one border crossing was needed to deliver aid to the besieged Gaza Strip and Kerem Shalom – controlled by Israel – is the only one equipped to take enough trucks.
