Gaza city: The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, described the destruction in Gaza from the recent conflict with Israel as “beyond description” and a source of “shame to the international community” as he visited the war-devastated coastal strip yesterday.
Urging a speedy reconstruction effort, he announced that Israel was permitting the first truckloads of construction materials to enter the coastal strip, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since before the conflict.
“I am here with a heavy heart,” Ban told a press conference. “The destruction which I have seen coming here is beyond description,” he added. Ban said the damage was far worse than what he had seen after the previous conflict — Operation Cast Lead — that took place in 2008-09.
The UN chief was driven through the ruins of Gaza City’s Shuja’iya neighbourhood and visited a school in nearby Jabaliya refugee camp, scenes of some of the heaviest Israeli shelling in this summer’s conflict.
Two classrooms at the UN school were hit by shells, killing at least 14 people sheltering there. Relatives of the dead held up posters showing their loved ones, while waiting to catch a glimpse of the UN head. Ban saved his strongest language for the deaths of some 500 children during the war. “I met so many of the beautiful children of Gaza. More than 500 were killed in the fighting — many more were wounded. What did they do wrong? Being born in Gaza is not a crime.”
Criticising both Israel and Hamas, he added: “Perhaps nothing so powerfully symbolises this summer of suffering than the Jabaliya school. Thousands of women, children, families were forced to flee the intense hostilities. They sought sanctuary under the UN flag. All of the details related to the location of this facility were shared with Israeli authorities again and again. Yet the shells fell.”
Ban was visiting Gaza two days after donor states pledged $5.4bn in aid for rebuilding after the summer’s devastating Israeli offensive. In his short tour of the strip, conducted under tight security, Ban visited areas that were heavily bombarded by Israel during the 50-day war, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed by Hamas rockets and other attacks.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians remain displaced by the destruction, and on Tuesday people camping outside their ravaged homes were seen waving at the convoy of white UN vehicles as it passed.Guardian News
