United Nations, New York—The UN Security Council could hold a vote next week, sought by Algeria, on a resolution seeking an “immediate” ceasefire in Gaza, diplomatic sources told AFP Saturday (Sunday in Manila), although Washington again appeared set to block it.
Algeria launched discussions on a new draft after the International Court of Justice ruled in late January that Israel must do all it can to prevent genocidal acts in its war in Gaza, which it says is targeting Hamas militants.
The latest version of the text, seen by AFP Saturday, “demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties.”
It also “rejects forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population,” and it “demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
The Gaza war began with Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel responded by launching a relentless assault on Gaza that has killed at least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Algeria has requested a UN Security Council vote on Tuesday, but Washington signalled it is likely to veto the measure.
US President Joe Biden is working with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar on a hostage deal that would bring about six weeks of a “prolonged pause in fighting,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement on Algeria’s proposed draft.
“The resolution put forward in the Security Council, in contrast, would not achieve these outcomes, and indeed, may run counter to them,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“The United States does not support action on this draft resolution,” she added. “Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted.”
Like previous texts opposed by Israel and the United States, the new text does not condemn the unprecedented attack by Hamas.
Earlier this month, Thomas-Greenfield said that Algeria’s latest initiative risked derailing the negotiations.
“We believe that it is high time now for the Security Council to decide on a humanitarian ceasefire resolution,” Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour said recently, adding there is “massive support” for the text’s elements among council members.
In October and December, despite international pressure over Gaza’s growing humanitarian crisis, Washington vetoed texts calling for a ceasefire.
The Security Council has adopted just two resolutions on Gaza since Oct. 7, including one calling for large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.
Mediator Qatar acknowledged on Saturday that prospects for a new pause in Israel’s war with Hamas were “not really promising” as Israel rejected appeals to hold off on a threatened assault on the Gaza city of Rafah.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that foreign countries calling on Israel to spare the city, where 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge, were effectively telling the country to “lose the war.”
Truce efforts intensified this week as Qatar and fellow mediators Egypt and the United States scrambled to secure a ceasefire before Israeli troops enter Rafah, the last major population centre in Gaza untouched by Israeli ground troops.
Despite a direct appeal from US President Joe Biden earlier this week, Netanyahu insisted the operation would go ahead regardless of whether a hostage release deal was agreed with Hamas.
“Even if we achieve it, we will enter Rafah,” he said at a televised news conference Saturday.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who met with negotiators from both Israel and Hamas this week, said efforts for a ceasefire had been complicated by the insistence of “a lot of countries” that any new truce involve further releases of hostages.
“The pattern in the last few days is not really very promising,” he said at the Munich Security Conference.
His assessment came as Hamas threatened to suspend its involvement in talks unless relief supplies are brought into the north, where aid agencies have warned of looming famine.
“Negotiations cannot be held while hunger is ravaging the Palestinian people,” a senior source in the Palestinian militant group told AFP, asking not to be identified as he is not authorised to speak on the issue.
Earlier, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh reiterated the group’s demands, which Netanyahu called “ludicrous.”
They include a complete pause in fighting, the release of Hamas prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Netanyahu also rejected pressure from some Western governments for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.
“After the terrible massacre of Oct. 7, there can be no greater reward for terrorism than that and it will prevent any future peace settlement,” he said.
The hawkish premier was speaking as thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv, calling for an immediate election and accusing the government of abandoning hostages.
“I am begging the prime minister and the cabinet to enter the negotiations,” said former hostage Sharon Aloni-Cunio, who was released along with her twin children in November but whose husband remains in Gaza.
Israel said Saturday it detained 100 people at one of Gaza’s main hospitals after troops raided the complex, with fears mounting for patients and staff trapped inside.
At least 120 patients and five medical teams are stuck without water, food and electricity in Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel has for weeks concentrated its military operations in Khan Yunis, the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.
Intense fighting has raged around Nasser Hospital — one of the territory’s last major medical facilities that remains operational. AFP