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That's a question the BBC's Anna Foster is trying to unpack with a panel of expert guests in a special edition of the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
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Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
I'm Paul Henley.
We're coming to you live from London.
The United Nations in New York are currently discussing the crisis in Gaza with a view to a vote on an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
We'll be hearing from New York soon.
The meeting comes on the day that the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross calls the situation in the Gaza Strip worse than hell on earth.
Such was the verdict of Mirjana Spoljaric, who told our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, that the ICRC team in Rafah in southern Gaza... received 184 patients yesterday morning as a result of the Israeli military firing on what it said were suspects deviating off the agreed route to an aid depot.
Here's some of that interview.
You were in Gaza earlier this month and in April you made some remarks and among those you said that Gaza was hell on earth.
Has anything changed?
It has become worse.
Humanity is failing in Gaza.
It is failing.
We cannot continue to watch what is happening.
It's surpassing any acceptable legal, moral and humane standard.
The level of destruction, the level of suffering.