The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross told the BBC that Gaza was worse than hell.

Mirjana Spoljaric, the group's president, said in an interview at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva that "humanity is failing" as it looks at the horrors of the Gaza war.

When I spoke in a room in a case showing three ICRC’s Nobel Peace Prizes, I asked Ms. Sporjaric about her remarks in April that Gaza is “hell on hell” and if anything happens, it’s changing her mind.

"The situation has gotten worse...we cannot continue to observe what is happening. It exceeds any acceptable, legal, moral and humane standards. Levels of destruction, levels of suffering.

"More importantly, we look at the fact that one person completely deprives human dignity. It should indeed shock our collective conscience."

She added that states must do more to end the war, end the Palestinian suffering and release Israeli hostages.

The ICRC president's wording clearly chose moral weight.

The International Red Cross is a global humanitarian organization that has been working to alleviate the suffering of war for a century and a half.

It is also the custodian of the Geneva Convention, an institution of international humanitarian law designed to regulate the act of war and protect civilians and other non-combatants. The most recent version is the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949, adopted after World War II and aims to prevent mass killings of civilians from happening again.

I reminded her that Israel defended its actions in Gaza in self-defense.

“Every state has its right to defend itself,” she said.

"And every mother has the right to see her child return. There is no excuse to take hostages. There is no excuse to deprive children of access to food, health and safety. In every conflict, every political party must respect the rules of hostilities."

Does this mean that Hamas and other armed Palestinians operated on October 7, 2023 - killing about 1,200 people and hijacking more than 250 hostages - without proving Israel's destruction of the Gaza Strip and killing more than 50,000 Palestinians?

"This is no reason for disrespect or hollowing out from Geneva practices. No party allows for violation of the rules, which is important anyway, because, look, the same rule applies to everyone under the Geneva Convention. A child in Gaza has the same protection under the Geneva practices when Israel was a child."

Ms Spoljaric added that you will never know when your own child is on the weaker side and you need these protections.

The ICRC is a reliable source of information about what is going on in Gaza. Israel does not allow international news organizations, including the BBC, to send journalists into the territory. Reports from more than 300 ICRC staff in Gaza, 90% of whom are Palestinians, form an important part of the war record.

Ms. Skorjevic, Chairman of the ICRC, talks with their team leaders in Gaza every day. Rafah's ICRC Surgical Hospital is the closest medical facility to the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) killing many Palestinians in a chaotic aid allocation.

Like the United Nations, the ICRC has not participated in the new operation. A fundamental flaw of the new system is that it caused thousands of despair, starving civilians through active war zones.

Ms. Spoorgevic said, “There is no reason to change and destroy what works and it doesn’t seem to work.”

In the past few days, the ICRC surgical team at the on-site hospital in Rafa near the GHF district has been flooded with at least twice the casualties in the food operation turmoil.

"In Gaza, there is no place. There is no place. Not for civilians and not for hostages," Ms. Skorjevic said. "It's a fact. Our hospitals are not safe. I don't remember another situation I saw in hostilities."

A few days ago, a little boy was hit by a bullet while under treatment.

"Even our own employees are not safe and secure... They work 20 hours a day. They are exhausted. But, too much, it exceeds human capabilities."

The ICRC said its Rafa surgical team received 184 patients, including 19 people who died on arrival, and eight others died from wounds and soon afterwards, the ICRC said. This is the largest number of casualties in a hospital established a year ago.

It happened near Tuesday dawn. Palestinian witnesses and ICRC medical staff reported that the killing scene was bad as Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians at new aid distribution sites in southern Gaza. According to foreign witnesses, this is a "total massacre."

The official statement of the Israeli military describes a very different situation. It said "several suspects" "deviated from the designated route of visit" to Israeli forces. The troops "had warned fire...the additional shooting was near some individual suspects advancing towards the troops."

Military spokesperson said they were investigating what happened. It denied shooting Palestinians in similar incidents on Sunday.

Ms. Sporajaridge said the ICRC was deeply concerned about talking about victory, at all costs, total war and dehumanization.

“We are seeing what is going on, which will make the world a region that goes far beyond Israelis and Palestinians because we are hollowing out rules that protect the basic rights of everyone.”

Without a ceasefire, she would be worried about the future of the region.

"It's crucial. Keep a road back to peace for the area. If you destroy the path forever, the area will never find security and security. But we can stop it now. It's not too late."

"National leaders have an obligation to act. I call on them to do something, do more and do what they can. Because it will reverberate, it will bother them, it will reach their doorstep."

The ICRC is considered to be the trustee of the Geneva Convention. The fourth agreed upon after World War II aims to protect civilians in the war.

She said Hamas' attack on Israel had no reason to do current affairs.

"No party is allowed to violate the rules anyway," Ms. Sporjaridge said.

In response to Hamas' cross-border attack, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza, in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 251 were taken hostage.

At least 54,607 people have been killed in Gaza since then, of which 4,335 have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, according to data from the region’s Ministry of Health.

She called on the parties to stop hostilities, saying: “We cannot continue to observe what is happening.

"It ignores humanity. It will bother us."

She called on the international community to do more. “Every state has an obligation to use its own means, peaceful means to reverse what is happening in Gaza today,” she said.