Security Council demands immediate Gaza ceasefire
SEEKS RELEASE OF ALL HOSTAGES AFTER UNITED STATES ABSTAINS FROM VOTE
The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution yesterday demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas and the release of all hostages after the United States abstained from the vote.
The remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution, which was proposed by the 10 elected members of the body. There was a round of applause in the council chamber after the vote.
“The Palestinian people has suffered greatly. This bloodbath has continued for far too long. It is our obligation to put an end to this bloodbath before it is too late,” Algeria’s UN Ambassador Amar Bendjama told the council after the vote.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the failure of the US to veto the resolution was a “clear retreat” from its previous position and would hurt Israel’s war efforts and bid to release more than 130 hostages still held by Hamas.
No shift in US policy
“Our vote does not, and I repeat that does not represent a shift in our policy,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. “Nothing has changed about our policy. Nothing.” Following the UN vote, Netanyahu cancelled a visit to Washington by a high-level delegation that was due to discuss a planned Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Washington had been averse to the word ceasefire earlier in the nearly six-month-old war in the Gaza Strip and had used its veto power shield ally Israel as it retaliated against Hamas for an Oct. 7 attack that Israel says killed 1,200 people.
But as famine looms in Gaza and amid growing global pressure for a truce in the war that Palestinian health authorities say has killed some 32,000 people, the US abstained yesterday to allow the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks.
Israeli forces fought Hamas militants in besieged Gaza yesterday, including around at least two major hospitals, raising fears for the patients, medics and displaced people trapped inside.
Troops and tanks have encircled Gaza City’s Al Shifa Hospital, the territory’s biggest, for a week and more recently moved on the Al Amal Hospital in the main southern city of Khan Younis.
While Israel has labelled its operations “precise” and said it has taken care to avoid harm to civilians, aid agencies have voiced alarm about civilians caught up in the fighting.
As combat raged on, technical talks have continued in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal.
End the ‘non-stop nightmare’
Almost six months into the war sparked by the October 7 attack, global concern has mounted over the threat of famine in Gaza, and on Israeli plans to invade the crowded farsouthern city of Rafah.
UN chief Antonio Guterres, on a crisis visit to the Middle East, has pleaded for an end to the “non-stop nightmare” for the 2.4 million people trapped in Gaza’s worst-ever war.
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack of October 7 which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel has vowed to destroy the militants, who also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes around 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead. The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Sunday put the total Palestinian death toll at 32,333, most of them women and children.
Bombardment and fighting in Gaza killed another 72 people overnight, according to the ministry.
Missiles rain down on Gaza
More than 50 air strikes rained down on the Gaza Strip, said the Hamas government press office.
Israel’s armed forces gave a similar number and said its fighter jets and helicopters had struck about 50 “terror targets” and “eliminated approximately 10 terrorists”.
Food and water shortages have deepened the suffering, especially in northern Gaza where residents, mostly women and children, were waiting in line to fill up jerrycans and buckets in Jabalia. “We don’t even have food to give us the energy to go to collect the water — let alone the innocent children, women and the elderly,” said one man, Bassam Mohammad Al Haou.
Another local man, Falah Saed, said, “We are suffering a lot from water shortages because all and pipes and pumps have stopped working since the beginning of the war”.
Hospital battles
Israel’s army said it was battling militants around two hospitals and reported some 20 enemy fighters killed in the past day in close-quarters combat and air strikes.
Israel labelled the raids “precise operational activities”.
Palestinians living near Al Shifa have reported hellish conditions, including corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men, who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.
Shifa operation to continue
The Al Shifa raid was in its eighth day and the military reported detaining some “500 terrorists affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations” and locating weapons in the area.
Israel has said the operation will continue until the last militant is “in their hands”, signalling an extended presence at Al Shifa, which troops also raided in November.
At Al Amal Hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces had surrounded all entrances and prohibited hospital staff from leaving.
Raids in more hospitals
The military said its Al-Amal operation included “raids on several terrorist infrastructure sites in the area and located explosive devices, RPGs [rocketpropelled grenades] and military equipment”.
The Red Crescent on Sunday said military vehicles had also surrounded the nearby Nasser hospital, but the situation there remained unclear.