The western powers on the UN security council face a choice of either demanding Israel lift its stranglehold on humanitarian aid into Gaza or being complicit in Israeli war crimes and collective punishment, foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim countries said on a visit to London on Wednesday.
The ministers are lobbying the five permanent members of the security council – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US – to back a humanitarian resolution instructing Israel to allow UN agencies, and not the Israel Defense Forces, to check aid going through the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza. They say the proposal is in line with practice in Syria, and reflects their concern that Israel is determined to depopulate Gaza slowly by making it uninhabitable.
