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Gaza worse than hell on Earth, Red Cross chief tells BBC as aid centres close for day [1]
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Date: 2025-06
Gaza worse than hell on Earth, Red Cross chief tells BBC
Jeremy Bowen
International editor, in Geneva
Image source, Getty Images
Gaza has become worse than hell on Earth, according to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric.
Speaking in a BBC interview at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Spoljaric says humanity is failing. States are not doing enough to end the war, end the suffering of Palestinians and release Israeli hostages, she adds.
Palestinians, she says, have been stripped of human dignity. International humanitarian law is being hollowed out.
What is happening in Gaza, she says, surpasses any acceptable legal, moral and humane standard.
The ICRC is an international organisation that operates in war zones. It has over 300 staff in Gaza, most of whom are Palestinians.
Its surgical hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, is the closest medical facility to the area where many Palestinians have been killed during chaotic aid distribution in the last few days near sites run by the Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The ICRC says that yesterday morning its Rafah surgical teams received 184 patients, including 19 people dead on arrival and eight others who died of their wounds shortly afterwards. It was the highest number of casualties from a single incident at the field hospital since it was established just over a year ago.
The ICRC is considered the custodian of the Geneva Conventions. The fourth, agreed after World War Two, is designed to protect civilians in wars.
The rules of war, Spoljaric says, apply to all parties.
The Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 were no justification for current events, she says. Spoljarić says the ICRC is deeply concerned about talk of victory at all costs, total war and dehumanisation.
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[1] Url:
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cvg5vyp33j1t?post=asset%3A09e08599-9e3d-4878-a965-ff0fd0054fe1#post
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