UN security council to vote on ceasefire call
The United Nations security council will vote on Monday on a new resolution calling for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, as Washington shows growing impatience with key ally Israel.
Agence France-Presse reports that the vote comes days after the US blocked a previous security council resolution that would have called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the battered Palestinian territory. But in the general assembly, the UN’s 193 members voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, with 153 in favour.
The coming security council resolution was introduced by Arab countries that had come away from last Tuesday’s general assembly vote bolstered by such broad international support, though the latest text’s fate remains uncertain.
The new draft, drawn up by the United Arab Emirates, calls for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip”.
It also affirms support for a two-state solution in the region and “stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority”.
In a move criticised by Israel and the US, the draft does not explicitly name Hamas, though it does call for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” and condemns “all indiscriminate attacks against civilians”.
The security council has faced sharp international criticism as it has passed only one resolution on Gaza since the start of the war, in which the 15-member body called for “humanitarian pauses”, after five other resolutions were rejected, including two because of US vetoes.
According to diplomatic sources, negotiations on the new text continued on Sunday in an effort to avoid another impasse, days after US president Joe Biden warned that Israel was at risk of losing international support due to its “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza.
Key events
Hopes for another ceasefire and hostage releases were raised at the weekend when a source said Israel’s spy chief had spoken on Friday with the prime minister of Qatar, which has previously mediated hostage releases in return for a week-long ceasefire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners.
Reuters reports that two security sources from Egypt – another mediator – said on Sunday that Israel and Hamas were both open to a renewed ceasefire and hostage release, though disagreements remained on how it would be implemented.
“We are open to any efforts aimed at ending the Israeli aggression,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said when asked for comment on the Egyptian statement. “This is the ground for any discussion.”
In a further positive sign, the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza opened for aid trucks on Sunday for the first time since the outbreak of war, officials said, in a move to double the amount of food and medicine reaching Palestinians in Gaza.
But Israeli authorities said they were determined to fight on to eliminate Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2006 and is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said in Tel Aviv:
It is important for me to make clear, the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] is determined to complete the task of dismantling Hamas.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, who travelled to Kuwait on Sunday to offer condolences on the death of Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah, is expected in Israel later for meetings with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other officials.
Post two of two
In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, residents reported hearing Israeli planes and tanks bombing and shelling and the sound of rocket-propelled grenades, apparently fired by Hamas.
The Israeli military said it had killed seven militants in an airstrike on Khan Younis and found rocket manufacturing parts and three tunnel shafts near a school used as a shelter, Reuters reports.
An Israeli tank shell hit the maternity building inside the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, killing a 13-year-old girl named Dina Abu Mehsen, according to a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, Ashraf Al-Qidra.
He said Abu Mehsen had previously lost her father, mother, two of her siblings and one of her legs during the shelling of a house in the Al-Amal neighbourhood in Khan Younis a few weeks ago.
About 19,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Hamas-run Gaza health authorities, since Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took another 240 hostage in its 7 October attack.
Israeli officials say 121 of its soldiers have been killed since its ground campaign began on 27 October.
Scores killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza
Israeli forces launched deadly attacks up and down the Gaza Strip on Sunday, hitting a refugee camp in the north, a hospital in the south and killing a teenage girl who had lost her leg in an earlier strike, according to Palestinian officials, media and eyewitnesses.
Reuters reports that Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said the Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed 90 Palestinians on Sunday.
Another missile attack on a house belonging to the Shehab family killed 24 people, Hamas Aqsa radio said.
The son of Dawoud Shehab, spokesman of Hamas-ally Islamic Jihad, was among the dead, an official from the group said.
A medic said dozens of people had been killed or wounded in the Shehab family home and nearby buildings.
We believe the number of dead people under the rubble is huge but there is no way to remove the rubble and recover them because of the intensity of Israeli fire.
In Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, medics said 12 Palestinians had been killed and dozens wounded, while in Rafah in the south, an Israeli airstrike on a house left at least four people dead.
People rushed to the building to rescue those trapped under the rubble. The sound of the explosion was “as powerful as an earthquake”, said Mahmoud Jarbou, who lives nearby.
The Israeli government said it operated against militant targets and that it took extraordinary measures to avoid hitting civilians.
UN security council to vote on ceasefire call
The United Nations security council will vote on Monday on a new resolution calling for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, as Washington shows growing impatience with key ally Israel.
Agence France-Presse reports that the vote comes days after the US blocked a previous security council resolution that would have called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the battered Palestinian territory. But in the general assembly, the UN’s 193 members voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, with 153 in favour.
The coming security council resolution was introduced by Arab countries that had come away from last Tuesday’s general assembly vote bolstered by such broad international support, though the latest text’s fate remains uncertain.
The new draft, drawn up by the United Arab Emirates, calls for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip”.
It also affirms support for a two-state solution in the region and “stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority”.
In a move criticised by Israel and the US, the draft does not explicitly name Hamas, though it does call for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” and condemns “all indiscriminate attacks against civilians”.
The security council has faced sharp international criticism as it has passed only one resolution on Gaza since the start of the war, in which the 15-member body called for “humanitarian pauses”, after five other resolutions were rejected, including two because of US vetoes.
According to diplomatic sources, negotiations on the new text continued on Sunday in an effort to avoid another impasse, days after US president Joe Biden warned that Israel was at risk of losing international support due to its “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our rolling live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. I’m Adam Fulton and I’ll be with you for the next couple of hours.
Israeli forces launched attacks up and down the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 130 people as a refugee camp in the north and a hospital in the south were hit, according to Palestinian officials, media and eyewitnesses.
A teenage girl who had lost her leg in an earlier strike was among the dead.
Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed 90 Palestinians on Sunday, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said. Another missile attack on a house belonging to the Shehab family killed 24 people, Hamas Aqsa radio said.
In central Gaza, medics said 12 Palestinians had been killed and dozens wounded in Deir al-Balah, while in Rafah in the south an Israeli airstrike on a house left at least four people dead.
Meanwhile, the United Nations security council will vote on Monday on a new resolution calling for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, as Washington exhibits growing impatience Israel, its key ally Israel.
The vote comes days after the US blocked a previous security council resolution that would have called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in Palestinian territory.
More on those stories soon. In other key developments:
-
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is “appalled” after Israel’s deadly raid on northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital at the weekend. WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said the “effective destruction” of the hospital over the past several days was “rendering it non-functional and resulting in the death of at least eight patients”.
-
The Israeli army has said it uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip so far, just a few hundred metres from a key border crossing. Such was its size that small vehicles would be able to travel within it, an AFP photographer granted access to it reported. The underground passage formed part of a wider branching network that stretched for more than 2.5 miles (4km) and came within 400 metres of the Erez border crossing, the army said. It would have cost millions of dollars and taken years to construct, Israeli forces said.
-
The United Nations security council could vote as early as Monday on a proposal to demand that Israel and Hamas allow aid access to Gaza – via land, sea and air routes – and set up UN monitoring of the humanitarian assistance delivered. Diplomats said the fate of the draft security council resolution hinges on final negotiations between Israel ally the US, which has council veto power, and the United Arab Emirates, which has drafted the text.
-
The Syrian army has said Israeli missiles launched from the occupied Golan Heights hit sites near Damascus that regional intelligences say targeted Iranian militias’ stronghold near Syria’s holiest Shia Muslim shrine. Syria’s air defences shot down some of the missiles that targeted the countryside around the capital in an incident that injured two soldiers, the army said in a statement on Sunday.
-
The Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza opened on Sunday for aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of war, officials said, in a move intended to double the amount of food and medicine reaching the territory. Two sources in the Egyptian Red Crescent said trucks had crossed Kerem Shalom on Sunday on their way into Gaza. One said there were 79 trucks.
-
The Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank is calling for an international investigation into reports that Israeli forces buried Palestinians alive in the courtyard of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital using bulldozers amid its deadly raid over the weekend. Palestinian health minister Mai Alkaila cited reports from witnesses who said they saw the Israeli actions in one of the few remaining functioning hospitals in Gaza, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. The Guardian could not confirm the reports and Israel had not responded to them.
-
France said that one of its workers was killed by an Israeli attack in Rafah. According to French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, speaking after a visit to Israel and the West Bank, the man killed was a Palestinian national who worked for the French Institute for decades.
-
The director of Israeli spy agency Mossad has met the Qatari prime minister for talks on resuming indirect negotiations on the release of hostages, CNN has reported, quoting diplomatic sources. The sources said the meeting on Friday between David Barnea and Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani was positive, the network said. Reuters has quoted two Egyptian security sources as saying Israel and Hamas are both open to a renewed deal involving a ceasefire and hostage release, although disagreements on detail remain. They said Hamas was insisting on setting the list of hostages to be released unilaterally and demanding Israel withdraw its forces behind pre-determined lines.
-
Former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has warned Israel that it risks undermining the legal basis for its action in the Gaza Strip, adding to growing international pressure over the escalating conflict. Writing for Britain’s Telegraph, the senior Tory warned against a “killing rage” and said Israel’s “original legal authority of self-defence is being undermined by its own actions”.
-
The US is to announce the launch of an expanded maritime protection force involving Arab states to combat the increasingly frequent Houthi attacks being mounted from Yemen’s ports on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The force is due to be announced by the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, during his Middle East visit. Five big shipping companies have now stopped their ships using the Red Sea in the wake of attacks mounted by Houthis in protest at Israel’s efforts to eliminate Hamas in Gaza.
-
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza: “By any account, I haven’t seen anything of this scale.” Philippe Lazzarini went on to say in an interview with Al Jazeera: “Everything is absolutely unprecedented and staggering. The number of people who have been killed … in 40 days, more women and children killed than the number of civilians in the Ukraine war.”