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UN chief calls actions in Gaza 'horrendous'
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said what is happening in Gaza is horrendous and that the war in the Palestinian territory is “morally, politically and legally intolerable”.
Guterres also said he would be willing to meet with Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu and US president Donald Trump at the UN next week.
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Netanyahu also said in a news briefing today that US president Trump had invited him again to the White House for a meeting that will follow his speech at the UN General Assembly later this month.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that if there was one lesson learned from Hamas’ October 7 2023 on Israel, it was that Israel needs to create an “independent weapons industry” that can “withstand international constraints”.
Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland, spoke about the UN Commission of Inquiry’s report that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, describing it as a “very important document” that should spark international action.
“I believe myself that the kind of actions that are necessary now are the exclusion of those who are practicing genocide, and those who are supporting genocide with armaments,” he told reporters.
“We must look at their exclusion from the United Nations itself, and we should have no hesitation any longer in relation to ending trade with people who are inflicting this at our fellow human beings,” he added.
Ireland officially recognized Palestinian statehood last year. The country has also formally backed South Africa’s case at the Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.
Israel’s military said Tuesday evening that it expects its Gaza City offensive to take “several months” to complete, marking the first timeline it has given for its plan to take control of the enclave’s largest population center, reports CNN.
“We will act until the war objectives are achieved. We are not limited by time,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson BG Effie Defrin told reporters.
“We estimate it will take several months to secure the city and its centers of gravity, and additional months to clear the city fully due to deep and entrenched infrastructure,” Defrin said.
On Monday, an Israeli official estimated that 320,000 Palestinians have fled the city so far.
Israel is determined to “go up to the end” in its Gaza military campaign and is not open to serious peace talks, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.
“Israel is determined to go up to the end and (is) not open to a serious negotiation for a ceasefire, with dramatic consequences from Israel’s point of view,” he said.
Summary
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said what is happening in Gaza is horrendous and that the war in the Palestinian territory is “morally, politically and legally intolerable”. Guterres also said he would be willing to meet with Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu and US president Donald Trump at the UN next week.
The UN human rights chief Volker Türk has been reacting to Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza City, which has already been devasted by famine and relentless bombardments. Türk says it is “absolutely clear that this carnage must stop” as he condemned the expanded assault as “totally and utterly unacceptable”.
In an update to X, the Palestinian foreign ministry wrote that the “failure” of international diplomacy to end the war is “suspicious and unjustified” and said Israel’s plans to occupy Gaza City involves the “deliberate targeting of civilians” and is turning the territory’s largest city into “a mass graveyard”.
An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military guidelines, said that the “main phase” of the Gaza City operation had begun, with troops moving in from the city’s outskirts toward its centre. Airstrikes have pounded Gaza City for some time in the lead-up to the operation, knocking down towers in the city, AP reports.
Some Israeli military commanders have expressed concern about the expanded assault on Gaza City, warning that it could endanger the remaining hostages held by Hamas, and may be a “death trap” for troops. Chief of staff Eyal Zamir, at a meeting Benjamin Netanyahu convened on Sunday evening with security chiefs, urged the prime minister to pursue a ceasefire deal, three Israeli officials told AFP.
The European Union urged Israel on Tuesday to halt its ground invasion of northern Gaza as the 27-nation bloc seems poised to increase pressure on the country. “Military intervention will lead to more destruction, more death and more displacements,” said Anouar El Anouni, a spokesperson for the European Commission.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday that Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza will worsen the situation in the enclave. “Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza will make an already desperate situation even worse,” Kallas wrote on social media platform X.
At least 64,964 Palestinian people have been killed and 165,312 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. At least 59 Palestinian people were killed and 386 others injured in the last 24 hours alone, the ministry, whose figures the UN generally find reliable, said.
In a post on X, the US secretary of state Marco Rubio said himself, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, who is also the foreign minister, “reaffirmed the enduring US Qatar security partnership” and the two countries’ commitment to a more stable region.
UN officials have told the Guardian that they have recorded 142,387 people crossing from the north of Gaza to the south between 14 August and 14 September, with about half coming in the last four days of that period.
Luxembourg said it will join a number of countries in recognising the state of Palestine at a UN summit in New York next week, adding to international pressure on Israel after similar moves by Australia, Britain, Canada and France.
Syria, Jordan and the United States agreed Tuesday on a roadmap to restore security in a southern Syrian region that saw deadly sectarian clashes in July, including plans to guard main roads and prosecute those who incited violence.
UN chief calls actions in Gaza 'horrendous'
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said what is happening in Gaza is horrendous and that the war in the Palestinian territory is “morally, politically and legally intolerable”.
Guterres also said he would be willing to meet with Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu and US president Donald Trump at the UN next week.
European Union foreign policy chief says ground offensive will worsen situation in Gaza
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday that Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza will worsen the situation in the enclave.
“Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza will make an already desperate situation even worse,” Kallas wrote on social media platform X.
“It will mean more death, more destruction & more displacement,” she said, noting that the European Commission will present measures on Wednesday to pressure the Israeli government to change course.
Jason Burke
The new 72-page legal analysis from the United Nations’ commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel is the strongest finding by part of the UN on Gaza to date.
It accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, saying that that its offensive there has been waged “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
Created four years ago by the UN’s Human Rights Council and staffed by three independent experts, the commission does not officially speak for the UN, which has not yet used the term “genocide” itself but is under increasing pressure to do so.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, called the report “scandalous” and “fake”, saying it had been authored by “Hamas proxies”. He told journalists: “Israel categorically rejects the libellous rant published today by this commission of inquiry.”
Read our explainer here:
Displaced Palestinians move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south.
The Israeli military has confirmed a strike on what it described as a Houthi military infrastructure site at the Hudaydah Port in Yemen.
In a statement shared on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said:
STRUCK: A Houthi military infrastructure site at the Hudaydah Port in Yemen.
The port is used for the transfer of weapons supplied by the Iranian regime, in order to execute attacks against Israel and its allies.
The IDF continues to strike military targets in Yemen in response to the repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against Israel and its civilians.
Syria, Jordan and the United States agreed Tuesday on a roadmap to restore security in a southern Syrian region that saw deadly sectarian clashes in July, including plans to guard main roads and prosecute those who incited violence.
The days of fighting between members of the country’s Druze minority sect and members of local Bedouin tribes in the Sweida region left hundreds of people dead. Mistrust remains, and some Druze have been demanding self determination, AP reports.
Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shibani told reporters at a news conference in Damascus that the agreement among the three countries includes moves to prosecute those who were involved in inciting the deadly clashes.
It also includes allowing aid to flow into Sweida, restoring services, deploying security forces on main roads in the tense region and working to reveal the fate of missing people and begin a process of internal reconciliation, he said.
Malak A Tantesh
The bombardment of Gaza City has been growing louder and more deadly for weeks, but in the early hours of Tuesday it felt like an earthquake that would never stop.
“Even when the bombings are not right next to us, we can clearly hear them, and the ground shakes beneath us with the intensity of the explosions,” said Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, 40.
Sahweil, a media researcher, said the dead and wounded from the night’s barrage had been taken to al-Shifa medical complex, where she heard the situation was “catastrophic”.
She had lost track of the latest news, however, as she tried to make the near-impossible decision of what to do to best protect her four children.
The Rashid coast road, the Israeli-designated “escape” route to the south, was jammed with the exhausted and desperate. Anyway, the cost of a ride was too high.
“On top of that, I don’t own a tent to give us shelter, and they are too expensive to buy. I would not be able to take all of the belongings and supplies I have already bought several times before,” Sahweil said. “Then there is the suffering we would face in searching for water and the lack of empty spaces to stay in. So if I leave, I would simply be going into the unknown.”
Like more than 90% of people in Gaza, the family has been displaced by the war. An overwhelming majority have been forced to move numerous times. Sahweil and her family have already been displaced 19 times.
Now, with the launch of a ground offensive, the Israeli army is calling on the estimated 1 million people sheltering in Gaza City to move south once more. But the Sahweils, and many others have been to the south before and are aware it is no haven from violence.
As part of what has been seen in Israel as a US green light for the ground offensive in Gaza City, Donald Trump used his social media platform, Truth Social, on Monday night to spread an unconfirmed report that Hamas had brought some of the estimated 20 surviving Israeli hostages up to street level to act as human shields.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday as he left the White House for a state visit to Britain, the US president doubled down on his comments, saying that Hamas militants will be in “big trouble” if they use hostages as human shields.
