US to vote for UNSC ‘no-truce’ resolution on Gaza

By: AFP
Published: 06:24 PM, 22 Dec, 2023
US to vote for UNSC ‘no-truce’ resolution on Gaza
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The United Nations Security Council was poised on Friday to vote on a much-delayed resolution concerning the Israel-Hamas war after Washington signalled support following resistance to earlier draft proposals.


After days of delays, the latest draft version seen by AFP calls for "urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities." It does not call for an immediate end to fighting.


US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters Thursday evening that "if the resolution is put forward as is, then we can support it."


She denied that the draft resolution had been watered down, saying it was "very strong" and "fully supported by the Arab group."


Diplomatic wrangling at United Nations headquarters in Manhattan -- causing the vote to be postponed several times this week -- has come against the backdrop of deteriorating conditions in Gaza and a mounting death toll.



"Some of this language is slightly absurd," said International Crisis Group analyst Richard Gowan.


"Other Council members have to decide if they will swallow a weak text for the sake of a deal, or if this is just too thin to bother with."


He noted in particular that veto-wielding Russia must decide "if they can back a draft that ultimately goes against their long-standing argument that a ceasefire is essential."


The United Arab Emirates is sponsoring the resolution, which has been amended in several key areas to secure compromise, according to the draft version seen by AFP.



Hamas rejects Israeli offer


Hamas has rejected an Israeli proposal for a week-long truce in the Gaza Strip in return for the release of some 40 hostages, including all women and children the terror group still holds, according to a report Wednesday.


Citing Egyptian officials, the Wall Street Journal reported that under the rejected proposal, Hamas would also free elderly male hostages who require urgent medical care. In exchange, Israel would halt air and ground operations in Gaza for a week and allow increased aid into the coastal territory.


But Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — another Iran-backed terror organization slated to take part in negotiations for the first time — reportedly told Egyptian mediators Israel must end its offensive in the Strip before they will discuss any potential deal.



- 'Acute food insecurity' -


It demands all sides "allow and facilitate the use of all... routes to and throughout the entire Gaza Strip, including border crossings... for the provision of humanitarian assistance."


Israel on Thursday bombed a newly reopened aid crossing, Hamas authorities said.


"Every single day we are working on increasing humanitarian assistance on the ground," Thomas-Greenfield added.


Members of the 15-member council have been grappling for days to find common ground on the resolution, as criticism mounts over the body's lack of action since the start of the war.


Israel, backed by its ally the United States, has opposed the term "ceasefire," and Washington has used its veto twice to thwart resolutions backed by a majority of other members.


https://twitter.com/Timesofgaza/status/1738031608421331368


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday there would be no ceasefire in Gaza until the "elimination" of Hamas.


The diplomatic tussle came as the UN's hunger monitoring system warned "every single person in war-torn Gaza is expected to face high levels of acute food insecurity in the next six weeks."


Hamas infiltrated Israel on October 7 and killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 people hostage, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.


Israel responded with a relentless air and ground campaign. The Hamas government's media office in the Gaza Strip said Wednesday at least 20,000 people have been killed, among them 8,000 children and 6,200 women.



Hamas says Israel bombs Gaza aid crossing


Israel bombed a newly reopened aid crossing point on Thursday, Hamas authorities said.


The United Nations human rights office in Ramallah said it had received reports that Israeli troops had "summarily killed" at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood this week.


An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the allegations as "yet another example of the partisan and prejudiced approach against Israel" by the UN body.


Israel has been under increasing pressure from allies, including the United States which provides it with billions of dollars in military aid, to protect civilians.


The UN estimates 1.9 million Gazans are displaced, out of a population of 2.4 million.


With their homes destroyed, they are living in crowded shelters and struggling to find food, fuel, water and medical supplies. Diseases are spreading, and communications have been repeatedly cut.


On Thursday a UN monitoring system said every single person in Gaza is expected to face high levels of acute food insecurity in the next six weeks.



- Strike halts aid -


The war began on October 7 with an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants. They broke through Gaza's militarised border to kill around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.


They also abducted about 250 people.


Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel began a relentless bombardment of targets in Gaza, alongside a ground invasion, which Gaza's Hamas government on Wednesday said has killed at least 20,000, mostly women and children.


Munir al-Bursh, director of the Hamas health ministry, was among the latest to be wounded while his daughter was killed in an Israeli bombardment on Jabalia, in northern Gaza, the ministry said.


According to the UN, the number of aid trucks entering Gaza is well below the daily pre-war average.


After weeks of pressure, Israel approved the temporary reopening of the Kerem Shalom crossing on Friday to enable aid deliveries directly to Gaza, rather than through the Rafah crossing from Egypt.



On Thursday an Israeli strike killed Bassem Ghaben, the head of the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom, the crossings authority and the Hamas health ministry said.


Three other people were also killed when Israeli aircraft targeted the infrastructure, they said. Israeli officials did not immediately respond to requests from AFP for comment.


The UN secretary-general's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, was "unable to receive (aid) trucks" via Kerem Shalom following the "drone strike" and the World Food Programme suspended operations at the crossing.


Dujarric's comments came after Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Israel could enable "even 400 trucks a day" of aid and blamed the UN for failing to bring more.


The army said its aircraft struck 230 targets in Gaza over the past day, including a rocket launch site, while ground forces had found weapons inside a school near Gaza City.


Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using schools, mosques, hospitals and vast tunnel systems beneath them as military bases -- charges the group denies.


The army says 138 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza.


On Thursday military spokesman Daniel Hagari said troops have killed more than 2,000 Palestinian militants since a one-week ceasefire ended on December 1. He did not elaborate on the source of his figures.



- 'Beyond catastrophic' -


The UN rights office said "details and circumstances" the killings in Rimal are still being verified but it "raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime".


The men were killed in front of their family members, it said.


Legal experts have previously told AFP that both sides could be accused of committing war crimes.


Diplomats visiting the region called for more assistance to reach Gaza.


British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, speaking in Egypt, said: "Everything that can be done must be done to get aid into Gaza".


French President Emmanuel Macron was in Jordan on Thursday to discuss with King Abdullah II "joint work on humanitarian and medical aid" for Gaza's civilians, according to the French presidency.



Israeli strike kills elderly woman in Lebanon


Israeli strikes killed on Thursday a woman in her eighties in south Lebanon, state media and rescuers said, with Hezbollah retaliatory attacks wounding two civilians, according to Israel's military.


The frontier between Lebanon and Israel has seen regular exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and Hamas ally Hezbollah, since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, raising fears of a broader conflagration.


Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said that Israeli "bombing on the town of Maroun al-Ras this morning killed a woman and wounded her husband".


Artillery shells struck "residential neighbourhoods" in the town, hitting the house of the couple in their eighties, the agency added.


Rescuers who transported the pair to hospital confirmed her death to AFP, and also blamed Israel for the strike.



Earlier this week, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group vowed that any Israeli attacks on civilians "will be reciprocated".


The Shiite Muslim movement said it struck the border villages of Dovev and Avivim "in response" to Thursday's deadly strike, later claiming several other attacks on additional Israeli targets including with drones.


The Israeli army said that "two Israeli civilians were lightly injured as a result of the launches toward the area of Dovev," adding that the military struck the source of the fire.


Later on Thursday, Lebanon's NNA reported multiple members of one family had been wounded in a "hostile drone" strike on a house near the area of Maroun al-Ras.


It also reported Israeli bombardment on other locations near the border.


Overnight, Israel had launched a rare deep strike into Lebanese territory, some 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the border, the NNA said.



- Displacement -


On the Lebanese side, more than 140 people have been killed since the cross-border hostilities began in October, most of them Hezbollah fighters -- including one announced on Thursday -- but also more than a dozen civilians, three of them journalists, according to an AFP tally.


On the Israeli side, four civilians and seven soldiers have been killed, according to officials.


According to updated figures from the International Organization for Migration, the hostilities have displaced more than 72,000 people in Lebanon, most of them in the country's south.


Thousands of civilians living along Israel's northern border with Lebanon have been evacuated by the army.


The Israel-Hamas war began with the Palestinian Islamist group's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.


Israel's retaliatory ground and air offensive has killed at least 20,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.


Despite holding sway over swathes of the country's south, Hezbollah has not had a visible military presence on Lebanon's southern border since the end of a 2006 war the group fought with Israel.



- Hamas says crossing chief killed -


An Israeli strike killed the head of the Palestinian side of the newly reopened Kerem Shalom border crossing on Thursday, Hamas authorities said.


After weeks of pressure, Israel approved the temporary reopening of Kerem Shalom on December 15 to enable direct aid deliveries to Gaza, rather than through the Rafah crossing from Egypt.


Bassem Ghaben and three other people were killed in a strike on the crossing, the health ministry said.


Israeli officials did not immediately comment.


Separately, the Israeli army said on Thursday that it had killed 2,000 militants in Gaza since December 1.



- Palestinians 'summarily killed' -


The United Nations human rights office, OHCHR, said it had received reports that Israeli troops "summarily killed" at least 11 unarmed Palestinians in a possible war crime in Gaza.


The Israeli army did not immediately comment. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the claims "yet another example of the... prejudiced approach against Israel that the OHCHR has adopted for years now."


- Diplomats talk aid, ceasefire -


On a visit to Cairo, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron repeated his call for a "sustainable ceasefire where Hamas is no longer able to threaten Israel".


He also said: "Everything that can be done must be done to get aid into Gaza".


Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Jordan to discuss with King Abdullah II humanitarian and medical aid, the French presidency said.


Macron is expected to reiterate "the urgency of establishing a new and immediate truce leading to a permanent ceasefire", the presidency said.



- Food 'emergency' -


Every person in Gaza is expected to face high levels of acute food insecurity in the next six weeks, a report by the UN's hunger monitoring system said Thursday.


The report warned 50 per cent of the population faced a food "emergency" by February 7, while at least one in four would be in catastrophic conditions.


https://twitter.com/wawog_now/status/1738028773994365170


Canada to welcome citizens' extended families from Gaza


Canada will take in extended families of Canadians in war-torn Gaza for up to three years, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Thursday.


The move, which is due to take effect on January 9, will allow Canadians to reunite with spouses or common-law partners, children and grandchildren regardless of age, siblings and their immediate families, as well as parents and grandparents.


Miller said the aim of the policy change is "to get people safe" as the humanitarian crisis has made Gaza "unlivable."


The government had previously focused on getting more than 600 Canadians, their spouses and children out of Gaza.


Miller estimated that it could see hundreds more resettled in Canada while fighting continues to rage in Gaza.


He stressed at a news conference, however, that it is "extremely difficult to leave Gaza and may not be possible for everyone."


"These are situations that are not under our control" and there is a "whole waterfall of scenarios where things could potentially go wrong," he warned.


Miller said he also ordered immigration officials to prioritize permanent residency applications for Palestinians.


The newcomers will require documentation and security checks including a biometrics screening in Cairo before being allowed to board flights to Canada.


Ahmad Al-Qadi, with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, told a separate news conference in Ottawa that many Canadians who fled Gaza in recent months had to make an "impossible decision to leave parents and siblings behind in a war zone because they don't have citizenship."


He thanked the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for expanding the eligibility criteria to Canadians' extended families.


The devastating war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, taking some 250 hostages and killing around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.


Israel's retaliatory bombardment and ground invasion has killed at least 20,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Hamas government.


Eight Canadian citizens and one person with deep connections to Canada have died in the region since fighting broke out. Another is missing.

Categories : World

AFP

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