'Gaza is now hell on Earth,' Palestine's UN envoy tells Security Council

WASHINGTON

"Gaza is now hell on Earth," Palestine's UN envoy told a Security Council emergency session on Monday.

"Saving humanity from hell today means for the UN to save Palestinians in Gaza," Riyad Mansour said in his address at the session, which was requested by the United Arab Emirates.

He said 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are enduring suffering that no one should suffer, stating "they are besieged and bombed."

The envoy said half the homes in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed after Israeli airstrikes, with over 1.4 million people forcibly displaced.

"Virtually all of our people in Gaza are displaced," said Mansour, adding that people are sleeping in cars and on the streets and are “still being killed wherever they go.”

He said more than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed so far, including over 3,000 in the south of Gaza, where he said Israel has forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of people.

"These staggering figures keep rising with every minute that action is delayed to stop the onslaught against our people," he said.

The envoy called on the member states to act now, saying Palestinians in Gaza "face death every day and every night.”

"Save them. Look at them as human beings," he added.