Gaza cannot afford another all-out war, says Ban Ki-moon

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/10/gza-cannot-afford-all-out-war-ban-ki-moon-hamas-israel

Version 0 of 1.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, issued a call for restraint from both Israel and the Hamas leadership in Gaza on Thursday, warning of a spiral into "full-blown war" as the security council held an emergency session to address the crisis. But there was little evidence of significant pressure on either side to end their mutual bombardment.

"Gaza is on a knife-edge," he warned. "The deteriorating situation is leading to a downward spiral which could quickly get out of control. The risk of violence expanding further still is real. Gaza, and the region as a whole, cannot afford another full-blown war."

The Israeli envoy to the UN, Ron Prosor, rejected calls for a ceasefire or restraint, saying Israel would not stop until it had crippled Hamas's ability to launch rockets. Demanding restraint of Israel, Prosor said, was akin to "asking a fire brigade to fight an inferno with a bucket of water".

The Israeli envoy played a recording of air raid sirens on his mobile phone to the security council to demonstrate the threat of Hamas rockets to Israeli civilians, who he said had only 15 seconds warning to find cover.Prosor also derided Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority as "a mouthpiece for Hamas", but Ban went out of his way to praise the Palestinian president "for courageously upholding his commitment to security coordination" with Israel, adding that "this is essential to achieving stability on the ground".

The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told the security council that Abbas had formally accused the Israeli government of war crimes for its bombardment of densely populated areas in Gaza, saying that the death toll could be over 90. Mansour read out the names of the dead, including eight children.

Reports from New York said American diplomats were working hard to water down the wording of any security council rebuke directed at Israel. The US state department has called for restraint on both sides while insisting Israel had the right to defend itself against rocket attacks.

The EU earlier this week said it "strongly condemns the indiscriminate fire into Israel by militant groups in the Gaza strip", and "deplores the growing number of civilian casualties, reportedly among them children, caused by Israeli retaliatory fire".

"The safety and security of all civilians must be of paramount importance," the EU statement added.

Egypt opened its border with Gaza to allow critical casualties out for treatment in Sinai on Thursday, amid accusations from Hamas that Egypt's president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, had done little behind the scenes to help mediate a solution to the crisis.

The opening of the border accompanied statements by Egyptian officials stressing Egypt's active role in bringing an end to the latest Gaza conflict. The spokesman for Egypt's foreign ministry, Badr Abdelatty, told the Guardian: "We have extensive and full contact with all parties concerned, either directly or internationally. Our main objective is to stop Israeli aggression. We are in full contact and pushing very hard to provide all humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza."

The office of Egypt's president stated that he was communicating with key international figures – including the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.

Egypt's former president, the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, won international acclaim for helping to broker a swift peace deal to the last conflict in Gaza in 2012.

Since Sisi ousted Morsi last July, relations between Egypt and Hamas have soured significantly. Egypt has blocked most of the tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza, while Hamas has been banned inside Egypt, its actions vilified in Egyptian media, and some of its members tried in absentia on charges relating to the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to Issandr el-Amrani, a Cairo-based analyst, the links between Egyptian intelligence and Hamas have not been broken: "Egypt does not want to empower Hamas but that doesn't mean they want the conflict to go on … If that was the case two or three days ago, it isn't now."