Amid war, UN chief visits Gaza border today

Guterres will also visit a hospital in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, near the Gaza border.

United Nations:

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit the Egyptian-Gaza border city of Rafah on Saturday to reiterate his call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, his spokesman said on Friday.

Spokesman Farhan Haq said Guterres, who is currently in Brussels, will arrive in Egypt on Friday evening to begin “his annual Ramadan solidarity tour, which this year takes place during the tumultuous period of the conflict in Gaza.”

There, the Secretary-General will meet aid workers on the Egyptian side of Rafah, which borders the Gaza Strip and has been a key gateway for humanitarian supplies to reach the region.

Guterres will also visit a hospital in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, near the Gaza border.

Israel this week threatened to launch an offensive on the Palestinian side of Rafah, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning that would be a “mistake” that “risks further isolating Israel around the world”.

After nearly six months of Israeli bombardment, some 1.5 million people have poured into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, paralyzing the area.

At least 31,988 people have died in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive in October, according to the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry.

The war was triggered by an attack by Hamas militants on Israel on October 7 that killed about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to AFP statistics based on official Israeli data.

Haq said Guterres, who last visited Rafah in October, will “reiterate his call for a humanitarian ceasefire and to silence the guns, especially in Gaza and Sudan” during his visit.

In Cairo, he is expected to eat iftar – the dinner that marks the end of daily fasting during Ramadan – with refugees who have fled Sudan due to its ongoing conflict.

Guterres will then travel to Amman, Jordan, to visit UNRWA facilities.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency that supports Palestinian refugees, has faced controversy recently over Israel’s claims that 12 of its 30,000 employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

The United Nations has since fired the accused employees and launched internal and independent investigations into UNRWA.

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