[ecr] 

“The Security Council must act now, resolutely, to impose an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire to end the collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinian population in Gaza and to honor our commitment to international humanitarian law,” he said during his address at the session dedicated to the issue of famine in northern Gaza.

“The deterioration of the situation in Gaza (…) was foreseeable. Famine is now afflicting a Palestinian population that was already suffering,” he stressed during this Security Council meeting, held at the request of Algeria, Guyana, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

This follows the latest report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which reports an “imminent and substantial probability of famine” in Gaza.

“Humanitarian organizations have repeatedly sounded the alarm (regarding the situation in northern Gaza), while the international community remains unable to halt the Zionist aggression,” lamented Bendjama. “As President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said, this aggression clearly demonstrates the international community’s failure to uphold universally applicable rules,” he recalled.

“The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza is not an accident; rather, it is the consequence of a deliberate policy of deprivation imposed by the occupying power,” emphasized Algeria’s representative.

In this regard, he cited the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, who noted that in December 2023, “Palestinians in Gaza accounted for 80% of those worldwide suffering from famine or catastrophic hunger.”

For the Zionist entity, “it is about emptying northern Gaza of its inhabitants,” stressed Bendjama.

“This is an established and recognized policy by the ‘Zionist entity’ aimed at systematically displacing Palestinians from this area,” he added, citing statements from Zionist authorities who “have clearly said (that) Palestinians will not be allowed to return to their homes in northern Gaza.”

This decision “represents a flagrant violation of Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 2735, which guarantees the right of displaced persons to return to their homes.”

“Despite repeated appeals from the international community, despite the resolutions adopted by the Security Council, and the mechanisms put in place by the UN, only 37 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza daily last October,” he added, pointing out that one year earlier, the number of trucks was 500.

“Amid this crisis, the occupying authorities decided to halt the activities of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) in the occupied Palestinian territories. This decision represents a new act of collective punishment against the Palestinian population,” he said.

“The ‘Zionist’ finance minister said it might be just and moral to starve two million residents of Gaza,” he decried. “And we, as members of the Security Council, must honor our moral and legal obligations (…). The lives of children, women, the elderly, indeed all civilians are in danger. We cannot let these people face, alone, an occupying power that disregards (…) human life,” he stressed. [/ecr]