25 Countries Demand Israel End Its Destruction Of Gaza That Aid Teams Say Is In 'Death Phase'

More than two dozen countries released a joint statement on Monday demanding Israel immediately end its ongoing campaign of destruction in Gaza, which aid workers inside the Palestinian territory say has reached its “death phase.”

The signatories — which are mostly made up of European foreign ministers and the EU commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management — condemned the U.S.-backed militarized aid sites that have been described as “death traps,” as well as the ongoing blockade of desperately needed humanitarian assistance that has led to mass starvation, thirst and disease, on top of the daily airstrikes and gunfire.

“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” read the statement, which does not include the United States.

The State Department did not respond to HuffPost’s inquiry into whether the signatories had reached out to the U.S. before publishing. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, called the statement “disgusting” and accused the countries of siding with Hamas.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also lambasted the statement, saying it’s “disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas.” The agency went on to blame the militant group for the massacres Israeli forces and mercenaries carry out every day against Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid.

“The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognize Hamas’s role and responsibility for the situation,” the ministry said of the statement that expressly calls for Hamas to release the hostages. “Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides.”

Israel’s starvation campaign has reached historic levels of depravity, with soldiers corralling desperate Palestinians to their so-called aid sites before opening fire on them. Since May, Israeli forces have killed more than a thousand hungry people seeking aid, according to the UN agency responsible for helping Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Doctors say the wounded — especially children — will often die an unnecessary death because Israel has destroyed the hospitals, blocked medical supplies from entering the territory and left patients so malnourished their immune system won’t let them heal.

“I have never seen a situation in which so many severely malnourished children perish in such a short time after reaching medical care,” Joseph Belliveau, executive director of aid group MedGlobal, said Tuesday in response to five Palestinian children dying of severe acute malnutrition in a span of 72 hours.

“This is a deliberate and human-made disaster. Those children died because there is not enough food in Gaza and not enough medicines, including IV fluids and therapeutic formula, to revive them,” he continued. “This is not an inevitable result of war. It is a choice to collectively punish an entire population in its most raw, brutal and extreme form.”

Just outside Gaza are at least 6,000 UNRWA trucks full of humanitarian assistance the agency says could feed the population of 2 million for at least three months — including Palestinians working with UNRWA who senior emergency officer Louise Wateridge said are fainting from hunger while trying to help their community.

“Political will is needed. Inaction is complicity and makes us lose our humanity,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said. The countries in Monday’s joint statement said they are “prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire,” though did not specify what that action would look like.

The countries also condemned as a “violation of international humanitarian law” the Israeli government’s proposal to force the Palestinian population into a so-called “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city that soldiers have essentially wiped out. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has described the proposal as a concentration camp to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.

“We’ve finally reached the final episode,” UNRWA worker Mona told Wateridge. “Now we’re in the death phase, because everything around people at the moment is death.”