Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia provided a sober, succinct summary of what will happen across Southwest Asia if and when Israel proceeds with its threatened full-scale invasion of Gaza. In remarks delivered to the Oct. 24 UN Security Council meeting, he stated:
“Israel’s potential force action in Gaza with the use of the methods we are seeing now: with the most blatant violations of international humanitarian law, mass deaths of civilians, is threatening to trigger a more large-scale conflict that may embrace the entire region and even go beyond its borders. We want to believe that no one of the Security Council members are interested in this,” TASS quoted him as saying.
The slaughter indeed continues in Gaza. Over 700 people were killed there on Tuesday, 305 of whom were children—40% of all Gazan deaths at the hands of the IDF over the last two weeks have been of children. Another 100 died in the West Bank. One-third of all hospitals and two-thirds of primary health clinics are closed, either destroyed or having run out of fuel. Half of all residences have been levelled. Reuters reported the Israeli justification of the carnage of innocent civilians: “The Israeli military says that Hamas, which rules Gaza, has entrenched itself among the civilian population everywhere.”
