United Arab Emirates Ambassador Lana Zaki Nusseibeh has warned that the world was “witnessing the making of a lost generation of children and youth physically and mentally scarred by these experiences”.

While addressing the UN Security Council, she shared stories about some of the people affected by the conflict, such as a medical student called Alaa whose home was levelled in an Israeli airstrike. The young woman was pulled alive from the rubble, along with the lifeless bodies of her mother, brother and nephew.

“I feel the need to remind the Council that, like Alaa, every single one of the 2,650 currently reported as trapped under rubble are human beings and that more than half of them are children,” she said.

She said there can be no doubt that the attacks by Israel in pursuit of its security are disproportionate, cruel and inhumane, which she condemned in the strongest possible terms.