UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Wednesday “welcomed” the temporary truce deal reached between Israel and Hamas, but said it was not enough, with his spokesperson emphasizing that he stands for a humanitarian ceasefire in besieged Gaza.

“I welcome the agreement reached by Israel and Hamas. It’s an important step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done,” the UN chief said in a statement read out at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

In his statement, Guterres added that the UN “will mobilize all its capacities to support the implementation & maximize positive impact on the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” which after six weeks of relentless Israeli attacks is in ruins and its 2.3 million population traumatized.

The temporary humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas has been welcomed by the international community, from neighboring Arab countries to multinational organizations.

It is expected to come into force on Thursday and in a first phase, Hamas will hand over at least 50 hostages, almost all of them women and children, of the more than 240 it seized on Oct. 7, and Israel will release a first batch of 150 Palestinian prisoners.

The agreement includes a temporary truce of at least four days, which may be extended to a maximum of 10, in which the fighting will be completely paused and will involve the entry into the strip of between 100 and 300 trucks of food and medical aid and fuel.

The top UN official leading efforts to secure a lasting peace in the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, echoed the secretary-general’s comments and also welcomed the announced 96-hour “humanitarian pause” in war-shattered Gaza.

“This pause must be used to its fullest extent to facilitate the release of hostages and alleviate the dire needs of Palestinians in Gaza.”

The development comes as UN humanitarians reiterated that they remain ready to seize the opportunity to ramp up lifesaving aid to the enclave.

Following the four-day temporary truce announcement the UN World Health Organization (WHO) issued fresh calls for safe, unimpeded humanitarian access in the Strip.

“The fighting needs to stop so that we can quickly scale up our response,” said Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “We cannot keep providing drops of aid in Gaza in an ocean of need.”

Meanwhile, WHO said that a new evacuation was underway at Gaza City’s embattled Al-Shifa hospital, with more to follow in northern Gaza.

According to media reports, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was due to begin within 24 hours of its announcement. In his statement, Mr. Wennesland welcomed the efforts of the Governments of Egypt, Qatar and the United States in “facilitating” the agreement.

WHO’s representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, said that any news of a humanitarian pause and of a release of hostages was welcome, but that a true end to the fighting was needed.

At the same WHO press conference in Cairo, Dr. Al-Mandhari called for a “permanent ceasefire” and said that the parties to the conflict should “put the welfare and health of their people as their first priority”.

The UN health agency official also led a minute of silence to honour WHO staffer Dima Alhaj, killed in Gaza, along with many relatives. “As we grieve, we are reminded of the senseless nature of this conflict and of the fact that in Gaza today nowhere is safe for civilians, including our own UN colleagues,” he said.

Dr. Peeperkorn revealed on Wednesday that a mission was under way in close coordination with humanitarian partners the Palestinian Red Crescent and Médecins Sans Frontières, to evacuate patients and health workers remaining in Al-Shifa.

The mission follows the initial inter-agency evacuation of 31 premature babies on Sunday. Out of the 220 patients and 200 health workers still at the hospital, the priority evacuees would be 21 dialysis patients, 29 patients with spinal injuries and those in intensive care, Dr. Peeperkorn said.

He also informed that in the meantime, the UN health agency has received evacuation requests from three other hospitals in northern Gaza: Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Al-Awda Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, and planning was under way, with WHO and its partners sparing no efforts to “make sure this happens in the coming days”.

He said that such evacuations are only undertaken upon request and as a last resort.

Dr. Al-Mandhari deplored the fact that even hospitals are not being protected from the “horrors” of the conflict in Gaza. WHO has documented 178 attacks on healthcare in the Strip since 7 October and out of the enclave’s 36 hospitals 28 are not functional anymore, his colleague Dr. Peeperkorn told journalists.

The eight remaining hospitals, all in the south, are “overwhelmed”, he said, and all efforts must be made to keep them functional and expand their bed capacity.

The enclave had some 3,500 hospital beds prior to the current escalation and that number is now down to less than 1,400.

The possibility of a ceasefire has raised hopes for improved access to desperate Gazan civilians and an increase in the volume of relief items coming through.

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