Israel’s leadership made it clear to Malta’s permanent representative to the United Nations that a ceasefire in Gaza was “absolutely out of the question” during her recent visit to the country.

UN and New York-based ambassador Vanessa Frazier was speaking to Times of Malta following her recent trip to Israel to meet with the country’s leadership. 

Frazier was behind a Malta-led UN Security Council resolution in November which called for humanitarian pauses to allow aid into Gaza in the wake of the October 7 attacks, which sparked a war which has left more than 30,000 people dead. 

Frazier said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had been firm in their commitment to maintaining Israel’s offensive in the region. 

“There was a common message... that a ceasefire is absolutely out of the question. They will go to the end, to the elimination of the last Hamas standing,” she said. 

While stressing that calls for humanitarian pauses included in the Malta-led resolution were to Israel’s benefit by allowing those held hostage by Hamas to be released, Frazier was clear that such pauses could nevertheless not be used as bargaining chips. 

“Hostage release is not conditional to humanitarian pauses because taking hostages is a crime. So, we cannot put in a resolution that it’s something that can be weaponised or negotiated,” she explained. 

However, addressing reports of Israel preventing aid from reaching Gaza – with even Israeli protestors blocking aid convoys in recent weeks – Frazier stressed that “hindering humanitarian aid in a war is also a crime”.

Referencing the Israeli protestors at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, Frazier said their presence had been “spun” by Netanyahu as evidence the government was even going against the wishes of its own people to obey international law. 

“His message was, ‘even though it’s unpopular here, we’re not even abiding to what our people want, we’re abiding by international law and delivering aid’ – that’s how he spun it,” explained Frazier, a seasoned diplomat who was also an envoy during the Libya crisis. 

However, regardless of the motives for Israel allowing aid into Gaza, Frazier recalls being unimpressed with the activity at the Kerem Shalom crossing used by trucks carrying goods from Israel or Egypt into Gaza when she visited alongside seven other UN representatives. 

Israel reopened the crossing in mid-December after being closed for two months following the Hamas attack. Until then, the only way for aid to get into Gaza was via the Rafah crossing bordering Egypt.

But despite Kerem Shalom opening to allow aid into Gaza, there have been widespread reports of Israeli authorities sending back items under its long-standing “dual use” policy, which allows the country to block any items it considers to also have military use.

Last month, Reuters said water purifiers, medical supplies and tent poles had been blocked under the policy, according to an Egyptian Red Crescent document seen by the news agency.

‘Very serious’ allegations

In recent weeks, the UN agency overseeing Palestinians’ refugee status has been accused by Israel as having links to Hamas, allegations which have led the US, the UK and several EU states, among others, from withholding funding from the organisation.

On January 18, Israel claimed that 12 of the around 13,000 workers of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the region had participated in the Hamas attacks in October.

A dossier detailing the attacks was made public later that month, after Israeli officials circulated the document among US officials and media outlets. 

Commenting on the allegations, Frazier acknowledged they were “very serious,” and she supported the subsequent investigation into the UN agency, which has sacked the 12 people accused of complicity in the attacks. 

“It is very important that there is an in-depth and transparent review of UNRWA so that we find out the real extent of the Hamas infiltration,” she said, but stressed the accusations should be seen in context.

“Israel has been making allegations against UNRWA and trying to discredit them for a long time, this isn’t new,” she said. To date, Israel has not provided evidence for the claims put forward in the leaked dossier. 

She stressed it was important to “stop the discrediting of an important organisation,”  noting the agency fulfilled a vital function for displaced Palestinians.

“If UNRWA loses its mandate, Palestinians who are refugees lose their right of return – it’s very serious, and more serious than delivering aid.”

Hamas’s actions ‘demonic’

After visiting the border crossing, the UN delegation attended sites of the Hamas attacks, including the Nova music festival and a kibbutz hit by the militants. 

Frazier stressed the extreme nature of the crimes committed by the terrorist organisation, calling them “demonic”. 

“I was fully aware what had happened, and I knew what to expect, but being on-site and speaking to survivors was really, really shocking. There were horrific atrocities,” she said.  

“To even think that human beings did those things to other human beings. I would find it easier to believe if they had told me a portal had opened and demons came out and did those crimes.”

However, despite the heinous nature of Hamas’s actions, Frazier emphasised this does not give Israel carte blanche to conduct its Gaza offensive in a way viewed as controversial at best, with numerous accusations of the country flagrantly breaking international law. 

According to Gazan health authorities, more than 28,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war, most of them women and children. 

And Israel faces allegations of having breached international law by not taking care to limit civilian casualties, disguising its troops as medical staff to execute an extrajudicial killing and even using white phosphorus – a devastating incendiary weapon – on Gaza’s civilian population. 

Commenting on the way Israel has conducted its offensive in the region, Frazier stressed that Hamas’s actions do not justify alleged Israeli breaches of international law. 

“The law’s the law. Israel is a democratic state and Hamas is a terrorist organisation – we don’t expect them to have the same threshold of rule of law,” she said. 

When considering the enormous challenges facing the region, does she still have hope?

“One thing that is clear is that the Palestinian question should have been resolved decades ago... that it is going to be resolved now is a hope and hope springs eternal. But I cannot say that we won’t be here again in the future.”