Gaza casualties show Israel's tactics 'inadequate'

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the group attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 people and taking 240 hostages. Israel has launched air strikes on Gaza, an enclave of 2.3 million people, imposed a siege and launched a ground offensive.

“Hamas has violated international law by using human shields. But when we look at the number of civilians killed in military operations, something is clearly not right,” Mr. Guterres said at the Reuters NEXT conference.

Palestinian officials say 10,569 people have been killed in Gaza, 40% of them children.

“We also need to remind Israel that the existence of these terrible images of the dire humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people does not serve its interests. They do not serve Israel well in terms of global public opinion.”

Israel's UN ambassador Gilad Erdan dismissed Mr Guterres's remarks and said the death toll given by the Gaza Health Ministry was unreliable. He said Israel had tried to limit civilian casualties by creating an evacuation corridor, while Hamas had targeted civilians.

“Does the secretary-general dare to say that the fact that Germany suffered more civilian casualties in World War II than the US and UK means that the US and UK campaign was ‘inappropriate’ even though they were fighting a genocidal regime?” Gilad Erdan told Reuters.

There needs to be a distinction.

Although condemning Hamas' attacks in Israel, Mr. Guterres said that "we need to distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian people. If we don't have that distinction, I think humanity itself becomes meaningless."

Mr. Guterres also compared the number of children killed in Gaza to the global figures he reports annually to the UN Security Council. On Monday, he asserted that Gaza was becoming “a graveyard of children.”

“Every year, the number of children killed by any side in the conflicts we see around the world is at most a few hundred. But in just a few days in Gaza, we have seen thousands of children killed, which means there is something clearly wrong with the way military operations are being conducted.”

The UN report on children and armed conflict also includes a list of targets aimed at criticising parties to the conflict in the hope of pushing them to come up with measures to ensure child safety. The list has long been controversial, and some diplomats say Israel pressured the UN not to be included.

“Urgent need”

Mr Guterres described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “catastrophic”. He has been trying to push for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow aid into Gaza. He also said that 92 people working for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) had been killed.

“It is absolutely essential that a sufficient flow of aid into Gaza is made to meet the urgent needs facing the people there.”

The UN is working to speed up the delivery of aid into Gaza. Mr Guterres said that in the past 18 days, only 630 trucks have passed through the Rafah crossing. The UN also wants to be able to use the Israeli-run Kerem Shalom crossing.

“We are engaged in intense discussions with Israel, the United States and Egypt to ensure that we can deliver aid into Gaza effectively. So far, the volumes delivered have been too small and too slow.”

On the issue of Gaza's future after the war ends, Mr. Guterres spoke of a prospect that he considered the "best case scenario" - that the Palestinian National Authority "will hopefully be revived" and be able to take political control.

Mr Guterres also acknowledged the need for a transition period that would include negotiations with the Palestinians and the Israeli government. He said it was “premature” to discuss the possibility of a future UN peacekeeping force, saying such a proposal had not been raised in international forums.

“Many organizations or states can have a role. The UN can have a role. Many countries in the region can have a role. The United States can have a role,” he said. This could be the starting point for “a serious negotiation of a two-state solution” in which a Palestinian state exists alongside the state of Israel.

Nguyen Quang Minh (according to Reuters)

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