Geneva, March 1 (RHC)-- "There appear to be no bounds to -- no words to capture -- the horrors that are unfolding before our eyes in Gaza," Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday.

More than 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed as a result of the military onslaught so far.

Israel launched the campaign on October 7 last year following al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise operation by Gaza's resistance movements against the occupied territories.  Turk condemned "the brutality of the Israeli response" as "appalling and entirely wrong."

The UN official, meanwhile, warned about the pending dire consequences of a ground invasion that the regime has threatened to stage against the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

More than 1.5 million of Gaza's 2.4-million-plus population have fled to the city, finding nowhere else safe across the coastal sliver.  Such a ground assault, Turk said, would contravene the orders issued by the United Nations' highest court.

On January 26, the International Court of Justice in The Hague said Israel had to "prevent the commission of all acts within the scope" of the Genocide Convention.  "I fail to see how such an operation could be consistent with the binding provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice," Turk said.

"The prospect of an Israeli ground assault on Rafah would take the nightmare being inflicted on people in Gaza into a new dimension."