“The world must not tolerate” what is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Miriana Spoliaric, said yesterday Saturday, calling on all parties to proceed immediately to “de-escalation”.

“It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in the Gaza Strip amid massive bombardment, while with the military siege imposed, no adequate humanitarian response is possible. This is a catastrophic failure, which the world should not tolerate”, stressed Ms. Spoliarich, according to a press release issued by the ICRC services in Geneva.

He reiterated his repeated call for “the immediate release of all hostages.” According to Israeli authorities, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas took 230 hostages in its unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7. Another 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in this attack.

The ICRC, which already facilitated the release of hostages from the Palestinian Islamist movement, offered to mediate other such ventures. She also asked to be allowed to visit hostages, offer them medical care and facilitate contacts with their families.

In retaliation for the October 7 attacks, the Israeli armed forces have been relentlessly shelling the Gaza Strip ever since. The shelling intensified even more since Friday night, when Israel announced that it was expanding its ground operations in the northern part of the small Palestinian enclave, which is among the most densely populated areas in the world (2.4 million inhabitants).

The Hamas Health Ministry announced yesterday that 7,703 people have been killed since the outbreak of war.

International humanitarian law requires belligerents to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and prohibits the use of civilians as human shields to protect military targets, the ICRC recalled.

The indirect censure concerns both Israel, which is criticized for not doing enough to prevent civilian deaths, and Hamas, which is accused of using residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.

“In the face of this dramatic armed conflict, what is absolutely necessary today is the observance of international humanitarian law by all parties,” insisted Mrs. Spoliaric.

“The unhindered flow of humanitarian aid and personnel to Gaza is vital, as is the ability to restore basic services. Sustained humanitarian access is imperative and humanitarian workers must be able to operate in a safe environment,” he also stressed.

Humanitarian aid, which has been woefully inadequate, has been trickling in for the past week, exclusively through the Rafah crossing on the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, with the connivance of Israel, which has imposed an almost total siege on the enclave.

While hundreds of trucks daily guaranteed supplies to the Gaza Strip before the war broke out, since then only a few dozen have been able to transport food, water and medicine in the last week.

The interruption of the supply of fuel – a product with both civilian and military uses – has forced hospitals, bakeries, as well as desalination plants to stop working.

Ms. Spoliarich demanded guarantees that “hospitals will be able to operate safely” and that “critical services such as health, water and electricity must be restored immediately” in the Gaza Strip, which is ” priority’ to save human lives.