Ceasefire in Gaza Needed Now, Special Coordinator Tells Security Council, as Polio Spreads, Destruction of Palestinian Territory Continues
Representative Calls Gaza ‘Deadliest Place in the World to Be a Child’
With polio beginning to spread through the Gaza Strip, and humanitarian and health agencies overextended, an immediate humanitarian pause and a long-term peace deal are imperative, the Security Council heard today during an open briefing on the Palestinian question.
“We need a ceasefire now,” Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said, as he stressed that individual and collective capacities to manage the current crises in the Middle East “are stretched beyond their limits”. Detailing the “staggering toll on human life” that the war in Gaza continues to levy, reverberating violence throughout the region and the over 200,000 Palestinians affected by evacuation orders over the past month, he reported that UN agencies and humanitarian organizations continue to deliver life-saving assistance “with remarkable courage” through all available crossing points.
However, he cautioned, their efforts are jeopardized by unsafe conditions on the ground that, if allowed to prevail, will render humanitarian operations in Gaza continuously unable to meet the massive needs of the population. “The scale of destruction is immense, and will take years — if not decades — to recover,” he said. While the UN works to repair almost-entirely defunct water, sanitation and hygiene systems in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health just confirmed the first case of polio in 25 years. In response, 1.6 million doses of vaccine for the disease have been released for a campaign scheduled to begin on 31 August.
And while the eyes of the international community focus on Gaza, he pointed out that the occupied West Bank is “a tinderbox of violence and tension”. Detailing the situation there, he underscored: “If we are to prevent yet another spiralling escalation, the violence must end — there are no justifications for acts of terror, civilians must be protected and the incitement must stop.” Also spotlighting wider regional tensions and violence along the Blue Line and in the Israeli-occupied Golan, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Hudaydah and Tehran, he said that the Middle East is at an “inflection point”.
Stressing that a deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza is imperative — “now” — for regional peace and security, he urged the parties to reach such an agreement in the coming days. Meanwhile, the profound social, economic and political fallout from this devastation is yet to be seen or comprehended, and he underscored that “security and governance are intrinsically linked and must be addressed in tandem to achieve lasting peace in Gaza and address the West Bank situation”. Adding that the Palestinian Authority must be at the centre of governance in the Occupied Palestinian Territory — “there is simply no credible alternative” — he urged: “Security fixes alone will not lead to a more stable future for anyone in the region.”
Also briefing the Council today was Louisa Baxter, Operations Lead at Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit, Gaza, who spoke via video link from Deir al Balah, where Israel has issued an evacuation order. “Outside this room, I am surrounded by overwhelming destruction — more than 1.9 million people have been displaced and are moving through streets filled with rubble, rubbish and wastewater,” she reported. Further, she said: “As we speak, polio is spreading in Gaza and it will not wait at the inspection gate at Kerem Shalom or the customs desk at Ben Gurion airport.” Polio anywhere is a threat to children everywhere, she stressed, adding that without immediate preventative action, the outbreak will substantially set back global eradication efforts.
The first confirmed case — a 10-month-old baby in Deir al Balah — is an individual tragedy, as well as a sign of a larger looming catastrophe, she said. For every 200 children who become infected, one will suffer irreversible paralysis. Noting that polio is highly infectious and spreads via wastewater “which is now everywhere in Gaza”, she said “Israel has destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure, while effectively shutting off clean water from entering the Strip”. And while polio is easily prevented by a vaccine, vaccination services have also broken down over the last 10 months and 750 health staff have been killed since October 2023 while less than a quarter of hospitals remain functional. “This decimated health system is wholly unprepared to face this new polio crisis,” she said.
To effectively respond to the polio outbreak, she called for “two sustained cessations of hostilities, no less than one week for each phase”, to commence immediately. All attacks on humanitarian and medical personnel must end and people must be able to bring children to vaccination points in safety. If the parties to the conflict cannot agree to implement a ceasefire, “then it falls to this Council and its members to demand and enforce one, including by adopting measures to halt the transfer of weapons to Israel and Palestinian armed groups”, she stressed.
Save the Children’s clinic in Deir al Balah has seen over 13,000 people, she said, noting that the children show signs of profound trauma, with common childhood illnesses made so much worse by lack of food and water. Life-saving medicines are being blocked at the crossing gates by myriad restrictions. The organization’s protection teams in Gaza are working with children released from the Israeli military detention system, she said, adding: “These children report sexual violence, including rape,” as well as being denied food, attacked by dogs, and seeing their parents stripped and beaten in front of them.
“We are not humans if such briefings don’t touch us,” Slovenia’s delegate said about that briefing, when the floor opened for discussion. “As a parent myself, I cannot imagine the suffering of parents not able to provide their children a safe and carefree childhood,” he added, voicing support for a humanitarian pause and the plan to allow for two rounds of vaccination campaigns in Gaza. Noting that last week saw a “sobering milestone” with 40,000 fatalities in the war in Gaza, he expressed support for the negotiations to finalize a ceasefire deal. The whole world is watching to see what the Council will do and Slovenia “at least” feels the pressure to do something, he said.
“We are still counting our martyrs — over 40,000,” said Algeria’s representative, noting this figure may rise, with the spread of polio and Israeli forces deliberately targeting hospitals. His country is ready to contribute to international efforts to assist the polio vaccination campaigns, including by building three hospitals in Gaza and deploying medical personnel. However, such a campaign cannot happen under continued bombardment, he said, adding that the so-called “deconfliction mechanism” in Gaza is fiction. Despite being told for months that a ceasefire deal was close, “unfortunately, nothing happened”, he rued. The occupying Israeli authorities are determined to crush any hope for an independent Palestinian State, with Al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital.
However, the representative of the United States said a comprehensive ceasefire and hostage release deal is now “in sight”. Reaffirming her country’s “iron-clad support for Israel’s security”, she recalled United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visits to the region, and said Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed acceptance of the bridging proposal that her country, Qatar and Egypt put forward last week. “This is a decisive moment,” she said, calling on all Council members to use their leverage to press Hamas to accept the bridging proposal, “which includes massive and immediate benefits for the Palestinians in Gaza and incorporates a number of Hamas’s earlier demands”. Her Government continues “to work with the Israeli authorities to speed up clearances and remove restrictions so that Palestinian civilians can get much-needed food, medicine, shelter, clean water and other essentials including vaccines”, she added.
“Washington, for 10 months now, has kept the entire Council hostage, threatening their veto,” the representative of the Russian Federation said. He recalled that during negotiations for Council resolution 2735 (2024), “our American colleagues told us that the fate of the deal between Hamas and Israel on ceasefire and hostage release hinged upon that resolution”. The Council was told that Israel had agreed to the proposed deal even while that country’s official statements clearly showed no intention of stopping the military operation. Indeed, despite that adoption, Israel is continuing its brutal operation, only pausing when it needs to. Now the United States is trying to sell yet another deal that suits Israel and is asking Council members to exert pressure on Hamas. But, “according to the information we have”, he said, Israel insists on keeping a military presence in Gaza. The Security Council “never blessed” such a deal, he said, asking the representative of the United States: “On whose behalf are you acting now?”
Several delegates expressed concern over the lack of implementation of that text. The representative of Sierra Leone, Council President for August, speaking in his national capacity, pointed to the “collective desperation” for meaningful progress to be made towards the cessation of hostilities since the adoption of resolution 2735 (2024). Also expressing support for the UN’s polio vaccine campaign, he underlined the need to facilitate humanitarian access to ensure an effective campaign for vulnerable children in Gaza and beyond.
The General Assembly, Security Council and International Court of Justice have all made clear demands for a ceasefire, China’s representative pointed out, but “Israel has turned a deaf ear to them”. More than two months after the adoption of resolution 2735 (2024), Israeli military operations continue to cause new casualties every day. “It must be noted that humanitarian issues cannot be politicized, hunger cannot be weaponized and civilian lives cannot be trivialized as bargaining chips,” he added.
Speakers also echoed concerns about the emergence of polio on the Gaza Strip, and reiterated the calls for a humanitarian pause, to carry out a full-scale vaccination campaign, among them the representative of the United Kingdom. “Gaza has become the deadliest place in the world to be a child,” he observed, noting that the polio outbreak is “another deadly threat to a people already facing a multitude of deadly threats”. Israel must allow safe, unhindered aid access into Gaza and establish effective deconfliction mechanisms, he said, also pointing out that the British non-governmental organization UK-Med reported that their residential compound in the humanitarian zone was damaged by Israel shelling “just last night”.
The representative of France called for an urgent ceasefire and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance. “The UN cannot work to save lives through vaccines, only to have them destroyed again by bombs and bullets,” added Malta’s representative. Meanwhile, she observed: “When speaking of the living nightmare that Gazan civilians experience day after day, it is truly disturbing that all major threats to the human condition can be used as descriptors: famine, disease, displacement, lawlessness, impunity, psychological trauma and hopelessness.”
The speaker for the Republic of Korea reminded the Council that viruses do not respect borders; “polio in Gaza is a regional threat”. Israel’s right to protect its citizens and security does not negate its obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians, he added. Ecuador’s delegate said: “The only lasting vaccine against polio in this context is peace.” He, as well as other delegates, also condemned the recent suicide attacks in Tel Aviv, which have been claimed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Mozambique’s representative was among several speakers who highlighted the “relentless and horrifying” settler violence in the West Bank — he underscored the urgency of meaningful intervention in that regard. Japan’s delegate said his country has introduced sanctions against settlers, adding that their conduct undermines the viability of a two-State solution. The representative of Switzerland noted that attacks, threats and intimidation by Israeli settlers against Palestinians — recently seen in the village of Jit — “continue with almost total impunity”.
Guyana’s delegate noted that while the attack on Jit “was so unprecedented that it elicited a rare condemnation from the Israeli Government”, one Israeli Minister said such incidents happen because Israeli soldiers are not allowed to “shoot terrorists who throw stones”. This is illustrative of Israel’s heavy-handedness, she said — every form of resistance to its oppression “is met with a brutality that would make some of history’s most cruel oppressors blush”. She also contemplated “the illogical philosophy” that has driven Israel’s behaviour — while that country has established that security is one of its highest priorities, “it uses its military might to make enemies in the region” and undermine its own security, she said.
For his part, the representative of Israel, said: “We did not ask for this war.” Israel is not intentionally killing civilians and “there is no famine in Gaza”, and the Israel Defense Forces take pride in being “the most moral army in the world”, he added. Since the start of the war, his country has facilitated more than 14,000 trucks carrying aid into Gaza — including over 700,000 tons of food, he said. Further, it continues to work with partners to address medical needs in the Strip, he said, adding that enough polio vaccines for over 2 million Gazans were delivered between December 2023 and January 2024. “Between 95 to 99 per cent of Gazans are already vaccinated,” he said.
Noting that over 100,000 Israelis remain displaced in their own country — “unable to return home due to constant rocket attacks by Hamas and Hizbullah” — he said that, 320 days since the “slaughter”, the Council has not condemned Hamas for the atrocities committed on 7 October 2023. He asked how the organ — created and charged with protecting peace after the horrors of the Holocaust — could not condemn the largest slaughter of Jews since that time.
It is Hamas, he continued, that puts civilians in harm’s way and deprives them of international aid and, rather than condemn Hamas’ abuse of its own people, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other UN agencies have chosen to collaborate with them. He asked: “How can these bodies be part of the solution when they intensify the problem?”
Emphasizing that Gaza “stands at a crossroads”, he said that defeating Hamas will enable civilians in the Strip to “chart their own destiny in partnership with the most successful countries in the region”. However, he stressed that “so long as terrorists carrying rifles and suicide vests are entrusted to administer aid, terrorists will stay rich and civilians will remain poor”. Against that backdrop, he stressed that the Council has a choice — “continue down the path of moral ambiguity or stand up for what is right”.
Gaza had been polio-free for the last 25 years, Riyad H. Mansour, Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine, said. But, now it is under threat of this terrible disease that causes paralysis and death. “Gaza does not need more paralysis and death,” it needs life to be restored, and it needs it now, he said. Voicing support for the Secretary-General’s proposal for an urgent vaccination campaign, he stressed that any obstruction of this effort is proof of Israel’s genocidal intent. The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, he added.
Noting that the Israeli Government does not care about even its own citizens, he said it is killing hostages and bragging about retrieving their corpses when it could have secured their release alive. “Clearly, it cares more about killing Palestinians than it cares about saving Israelis,” he said, adding: “Those who want to place the fate of our people in the hands of this Israeli Government, hoping it will ever act in good faith, are gravely mistaken.”
“Who is stopping you from implementing” Council resolution 2735 (2024), he asked the members of the 15-member organ. Deal or no deal, there is no excuse for Israel’s continued killing in Gaza and its assaults in the West Bank. Israel does not have a right to genocide, and the Council has the obligation to stop a genocide, he stressed.
“[State of Palestine] President [Mahmoud] Abbas has declared his intention and the intention of the Palestinian leadership to head to Gaza,” he said, calling on the Council to visit the Gaza Strip, “to see first-hand the horrors our people are enduring” and to support President Abbas. Gaza is the beating, bleeding heart of Palestine, he said, inviting “all those who have spines” to come to the Strip and collectively impose the ceasefire and “stop the bleeding.” In September, he said, the State of Palestine plans to introduce an actionable General Assembly resolution demanding the end of this illegal occupation within a time frame.