UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza on Saturday as part of a solidarity mission in honor of Ramadan and called a line of blocked relief trucks a “moral outrage.”
“Nothing justifies the horrific attacks by Hamas on October 7th – and nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he said in a press statement. Now more than ever, it is time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
At the crossing, Guterres renewed pleas for a ceasefire and called for Israel to give an “ironclad commitment” to unfettered access to humanitarian goods throughout Gaza. He also called for the release of Israeli hostages held in the Strip.
“In the Ramadan spirit of compassion, it’s time for the immediate release of all hostages,” he said.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to the visit by saying that the UN “has become an antisemitic and anti-Israel body that shelters and emboldens terror.”
Katz said on X that Guterres “stood today on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, without condemning in any way the Hamas-ISIS terrorists who plunder humanitarian aid, without condemning UNRWA that cooperates with terrorists."
UN Gaza aid efforts
Guterres said that the UN will continue to work with Egypt to “streamline” the flow of aid into Gaza.
“Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said. “That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage.”
Before stopping at the border, the UN head met in El Arish with regional governor Mohamed Shousha who told him some 7,000 trucks with humanitarian aid were waiting in North Sinai to deliver aid to Gaza, but that Israeli inspection procedures were holding them up.
The visit by Guterres comes as Israel faces global pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas and is worried that the terrorist group will divert aid, has kept all but one of its land crossings into the enclave closed. It opened its Kerem Shalom crossing close to Rafah in late December and denies accusations by Egypt and UN aid agencies that it has delayed deliveries of humanitarian relief, saying the UN has failed to distribute aid within Gaza.
In remarks made later to reporters, Guterres also reinforced international appeals against an Israeli ground operation in Rafah city on the Gazan side of the border, where a majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering. He questioned Israeli plans to relocate civilians ahead of an incursion.
The UN leader also visited Palestinian civilians at an Egyptian hospital in El Arish. “It’s impossible not to feel heartbroken by the accounts of those injured or separated from their families,” he wrote on X after the visit. “It’s time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s time to silence the guns.”
Reuters contributed to this report.