Moscow, Nov 9 : UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said Wednesday that the situation of the people of the Middle East today is the most dangerous even in the context of 56 years of occupation, and the situation in Gaza is “a living nightmare.”
“Even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank but also regionally,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights quoted Turk as saying during his travel to the Rafah border crossing, connecting Gaza to Egypt.
The commissioner added that Palestinian movement Hamas and Israel are committing war crimes and called for the release of hostages held in Gaza and a ceasefire.
“I have just returned from the Rafah crossing — the symbolic lifeline for the last month for the 2.3 million people in Gaza. The lifeline has been unjustly, outrageously thin. In Rafah I have witnessed the gates to a living nightmare,” he said.
Turk added that some of his colleagues were among those “trapped” in Gaza and those who “have lost family members, suffering sleepless nights filled with agony, anguish and despair.”
*October 7, Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing and abducting people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2 million people, cutting off supplies of water, food, and fuel. On October 27, Israel launched a large-scale ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas fighters and rescuing the hostages.
The escalation of the conflict has resulted in the deaths of around 1,400 people in Israel and over 10,000 in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest official data, as well as a wave of anti-Semitic incidents globally.