Middle East: Security Council urged to find path away from ‘vicious cycles of despair’

Many speakers demanded an immediate ceasefire and the implementation of Security Council resolutions, with some calling for a humanitarian pause to ensure that polio vaccines can be safely delivered to the besieged and bombarded enclave, where the disease recently re-emerged after having been eradicated 25 years ago.

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HIGHLIGHTS

Here are some highlights from our live coverage:

• Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said the war in Gaza with all of its human tragedy, the serious risk of regional escalation, unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict and continued occupation are combining to create a combustible situation in the region.
• “We need a ceasefire now,” Mr. Wennesland said.
• Dr. Louisa Baxter, briefing from Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, said the area was “surrounded by overwhelming destruction”.
• More than 1.9 million people, out of Gaza’s 2.3 million population, have been displaced and are “moving through streets filled with rubble, rubbish and wastewater”, she said.
• “We are seeing the willful and repeated obstruction of humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” Dr. Baxter said, noting that her team had been waiting for lifesaving medicines for four months, supplies which “are held at the crossing gates by a myriad of rules and restrictions, many of them unwritten and arbitrary”.