Israel isolated as UN security council demands immediate ceasefire in Gaza
Julian Borger in Washington and Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem
Mon, March 25, 2024
The UN security council has voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after the US dropped a threat to veto, bringing Israel to near total isolation on the world stage.
The vote result sets up the strongest public clash between US president Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the war began.
The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favour of the security council ceasefire resolution, put forward by the 10 elected council members who voiced their frustration with more than five months of deadlock between the major powers. Applause broke out in the chamber after the vote.
The text demanded “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire”. It also demanded the release of hostages but did not make a truce dependent on them being freed, as Washington had previously demanded.
Netanyahu alleged the US had “abandoned its policy in the UN” with Monday’s abstention, giving hope to Hamas of a truce without giving up its hostages, and therefore “harming both the war effort and the effort to release the hostages”.
Netanyahu’s office cancelled a visit to Washington by two of his ministers, intended to discuss a planned Israeli offensive on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, which the US opposes. The White House said it was “very disappointed” by the decision. However, a previously arranged visit by the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, went ahead.
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, underscored in the meeting with Gallant that alternatives existed to a ground invasion of Rafah that would both better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians, the state department said.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said the UN vote did not represent a shift in US policy, but the resolution signaled a significant break between the Biden administration and the Israeli government – and represented a long-delayed show of international unity on Gaza after more than 32,000 Gazans have been reported dead, thousands more are missing, and UN agencies are warning that a major famine is imminent.
The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, called the security council vote a belated “vote for humanity to prevail”.
“This must be a turning point. This must lead to saving lives on the ground,” Mansour told the council. “Apologies to those who the world has failed, to those that could have been saved but were not.”
The isolation of the Israeli government was underlined even further on Monday, when the Israel Hayom newspaper published an interview with Donald Trump, a close political ally of Netanyahu, who said: “You have to finish up your war.
“Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support,” Trump said.
Hamas welcomed the resolution and said it stood ready for an immediate exchange of prisoners with Israel, raising hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations under way in Doha, where intelligence chiefs and other officials from the US, Egypt and Qatar are seeking to broker a deal that would involve the release of at least 40 of the estimated 130 hostages held by Hamas for several hundred Palestinian detainees and prisoners, and a truce that would last an initial six weeks.
Related: The US must stop facilitating mass killing in Gaza | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
On Tuesday, a UN human rights expert will deliver a report calling for Israel to be placed under an arms embargo, on the grounds that it has carried out acts of “genocide” in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in her report, which has been seen by the Guardian, there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel was carrying out three of the five acts defined as genocide.
In Washington, Gallant insisted Israel would go on fighting until the hostages were released.
“We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza,” Gallant said before his first meeting, with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. “The lack of a decisive victory in Gaza may bring us closer to a war in the north.”
The “war in the north” appeared to a reference to a looming conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a suggestion that Hezbollah would see the lack of victory in Gaza as a sign of weakness.
The US abstention followed three vetoes of earlier ceasefire resolutions, in October, December and February. It marks the significant widening of a rift with the Netanyahu government, reflecting mounting frustration in Washington at the prime minister’s defiant insistence Israeli forces will go ahead with the Rafah attack, and at persistent Israeli hindrance of humanitarian aid deliveries.
Minutes before the vote on Monday morning, the US asked for an amendment adding a condemnation of Hamas for its attack on Israel on 7 October, leading to urgent huddles of diplomats on the chamber floor, but dropped that demand when it became clear the amendment would be resisted. The US did however prevail over the weekend in replacing the word “permanent” with “lasting” in describing the ceasefire that was the ultimate goal of the resolution.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, said: “Certain key edits were ignored, including our requests to add a condemnation of Hamas, and we did not agree with everything in the resolution. For that reason we were unfortunately not able to vote yes. However, as I’ve said before, we fully support some of the critical objectives in this non-binding resolution.”
Her claim that it was non-binding was quickly challenged by UN scholars. Resolutions passed by the UN security council are generally considered legally binding, particularly when the text demands action, reflecting the unequivocal will of the international community. In its own defeated resolution last week, the US had avoided the word “demands”, but rather called it “imperative” to have a ceasefire and a hostage release.
The UK abstained on the three earlier ceasefire resolutions but voted in favour of Monday’s text. In explaining the vote, the British ambassador, Barbara Woodward, did not make clear what had allowed the change in the UK’s vote. British officials, however, have said that Downing Street policy was not to adopt positions at the UN that were directly at odds with Washington.
“This resolution needs to be implemented immediately,” Woodward said, on being asked if the text was binding. “It sends a clear council message, a united council message, and we expect all council resolutions to be implemented.”
Thomas-Greenfield had also insisted that the wording of the resolution “means a ceasefire of any duration must come with the release of hostages”. But the wording of the resolution, intensely debated over the weekend, demands a ceasefire and a hostage release in parallel. It does not make one conditional on the other.
The security council resolution also “emphasises the urgent need” for the expansion of the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and for civilians to be protected, in acknowledgment of the huge civilian death toll and the UN warnings of famine.
Mon, March 25, 2024
The UN security council has voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after the US dropped a threat to veto, bringing Israel to near total isolation on the world stage.
The vote result sets up the strongest public clash between US president Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the war began.
The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favour of the security council ceasefire resolution, put forward by the 10 elected council members who voiced their frustration with more than five months of deadlock between the major powers. Applause broke out in the chamber after the vote.
The text demanded “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire”. It also demanded the release of hostages but did not make a truce dependent on them being freed, as Washington had previously demanded.
Netanyahu alleged the US had “abandoned its policy in the UN” with Monday’s abstention, giving hope to Hamas of a truce without giving up its hostages, and therefore “harming both the war effort and the effort to release the hostages”.
Netanyahu’s office cancelled a visit to Washington by two of his ministers, intended to discuss a planned Israeli offensive on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, which the US opposes. The White House said it was “very disappointed” by the decision. However, a previously arranged visit by the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, went ahead.
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, underscored in the meeting with Gallant that alternatives existed to a ground invasion of Rafah that would both better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians, the state department said.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said the UN vote did not represent a shift in US policy, but the resolution signaled a significant break between the Biden administration and the Israeli government – and represented a long-delayed show of international unity on Gaza after more than 32,000 Gazans have been reported dead, thousands more are missing, and UN agencies are warning that a major famine is imminent.
The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, called the security council vote a belated “vote for humanity to prevail”.
“This must be a turning point. This must lead to saving lives on the ground,” Mansour told the council. “Apologies to those who the world has failed, to those that could have been saved but were not.”
The isolation of the Israeli government was underlined even further on Monday, when the Israel Hayom newspaper published an interview with Donald Trump, a close political ally of Netanyahu, who said: “You have to finish up your war.
“Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support,” Trump said.
Hamas welcomed the resolution and said it stood ready for an immediate exchange of prisoners with Israel, raising hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations under way in Doha, where intelligence chiefs and other officials from the US, Egypt and Qatar are seeking to broker a deal that would involve the release of at least 40 of the estimated 130 hostages held by Hamas for several hundred Palestinian detainees and prisoners, and a truce that would last an initial six weeks.
Related: The US must stop facilitating mass killing in Gaza | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
On Tuesday, a UN human rights expert will deliver a report calling for Israel to be placed under an arms embargo, on the grounds that it has carried out acts of “genocide” in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in her report, which has been seen by the Guardian, there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel was carrying out three of the five acts defined as genocide.
In Washington, Gallant insisted Israel would go on fighting until the hostages were released.
“We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza,” Gallant said before his first meeting, with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. “The lack of a decisive victory in Gaza may bring us closer to a war in the north.”
The “war in the north” appeared to a reference to a looming conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a suggestion that Hezbollah would see the lack of victory in Gaza as a sign of weakness.
The US abstention followed three vetoes of earlier ceasefire resolutions, in October, December and February. It marks the significant widening of a rift with the Netanyahu government, reflecting mounting frustration in Washington at the prime minister’s defiant insistence Israeli forces will go ahead with the Rafah attack, and at persistent Israeli hindrance of humanitarian aid deliveries.
Minutes before the vote on Monday morning, the US asked for an amendment adding a condemnation of Hamas for its attack on Israel on 7 October, leading to urgent huddles of diplomats on the chamber floor, but dropped that demand when it became clear the amendment would be resisted. The US did however prevail over the weekend in replacing the word “permanent” with “lasting” in describing the ceasefire that was the ultimate goal of the resolution.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, said: “Certain key edits were ignored, including our requests to add a condemnation of Hamas, and we did not agree with everything in the resolution. For that reason we were unfortunately not able to vote yes. However, as I’ve said before, we fully support some of the critical objectives in this non-binding resolution.”
Her claim that it was non-binding was quickly challenged by UN scholars. Resolutions passed by the UN security council are generally considered legally binding, particularly when the text demands action, reflecting the unequivocal will of the international community. In its own defeated resolution last week, the US had avoided the word “demands”, but rather called it “imperative” to have a ceasefire and a hostage release.
The UK abstained on the three earlier ceasefire resolutions but voted in favour of Monday’s text. In explaining the vote, the British ambassador, Barbara Woodward, did not make clear what had allowed the change in the UK’s vote. British officials, however, have said that Downing Street policy was not to adopt positions at the UN that were directly at odds with Washington.
“This resolution needs to be implemented immediately,” Woodward said, on being asked if the text was binding. “It sends a clear council message, a united council message, and we expect all council resolutions to be implemented.”
Thomas-Greenfield had also insisted that the wording of the resolution “means a ceasefire of any duration must come with the release of hostages”. But the wording of the resolution, intensely debated over the weekend, demands a ceasefire and a hostage release in parallel. It does not make one conditional on the other.
The security council resolution also “emphasises the urgent need” for the expansion of the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and for civilians to be protected, in acknowledgment of the huge civilian death toll and the UN warnings of famine.
UN Security Council demands ceasefire amid Israeli airstrikes
Nidal al-Mughrabi
Updated Mon, March 25, 2024
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council demanded an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Monday as Israeli forces carried out new airstrikes in Gaza and laid siege to two hospitals.
After vetoing three earlier draft council resolutions on the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel's main ally, the United States, abstained in the vote following global pressure for a ceasefire to ease fears of famine after nearly six months of war.
Hamas welcomed the resolution, which also demanded the unconditional release of all hostages seized by the militant group in its deadly Oct. 7 raid on southern Israel.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel could not stop its war on Hamas while there were still hostages in Gaza.
"We will operate against Hamas everywhere - including in places where we have not yet been," his ministry quoted him as saying ahead of talks in the U.S. "We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose relationship with Washington has been strained by the ferocity of the offensive, said the U.S. failure to veto the proposal was a "clear retreat" from its previous position.
He said he would not now follow through on plans to send a delegation to Washington to discuss a planned Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The White House said Netanyahu's decision was "disappointing".
The other 14 council members voted for the resolution demanding a ceasefire for the rest of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks.
"The Palestinian people have 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 U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama told the Security Council after the vote.
There has been one truce to date, lasting a week at the end of November.
At least 32,333 Palestinians have been killed and 74,694 injured in Israel's offensive, including 107 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.
Israel said 1,200 people were killed and 253 abducted in the Hamas-led raid on Oct. 7.
AIRSTRIKES AND SIEGES
The Security Council resolution was approved as Israel continued to besiege two Gaza hospitals where it says Hamas cells are hiding and following a new wave of Israeli airstrikes.
Rafah, the last refuge for about half of Gaza's 2.3 million population following the arrival of many people displaced by fighting elsewhere, came under heavy fire in the latest Israeli attacks, witnesses said.
Palestinian medics said 30 people had been killed in the previous 24 hours in Rafah, where Israel is planning a ground assault to eliminate what it says are militant cells there.
"The past 24 hours were one of the worst days since we moved in to Rafah," said Abu Khaled, a father of seven, who declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals.
Gaza medics said an Israeli airstrike had killed 18 Palestinians in one house in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, and the victims were buried on Monday.
Israeli forces were also besieging Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis on Monday, Palestinian witnesses said, a week after entering Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the main hospital in the Strip.
Israel says hospitals in Gaza are used by the Palestinian militant group Hamas as bases. Hamas and medical staff deny this.
The Israeli military said it had detained 500 people affiliated with Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad and located weapons in the Al Shifa area. Israeli forces also said 20 militants had been "eliminated" in fighting and airstrikes around Al Amal Hospital over the previous 24 hours.
Reuters has been unable to access Gaza's contested hospital areas and verify accounts by either side.
CEASEFIRE EFFORTS
U.S.-backed mediation by Qatar and Egypt has so far failed to secure agreement on a ceasefire and prisoner-hostage swap between Israel and Hamas.
As these efforts have stalled, international concern has mounted about the lack of aid reaching civilians in Gaza.
Concerns grew again on Monday after the Israeli government said it would stop working in Gaza with the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which it said was perpetuating conflict.
"UNRWA are part of the problem, and we will now stop working with them. We are actively phasing out the use of UNRWA because they perpetuate the conflict rather than try and alleviate the conflict," spokesperson David Mencer told reporters.
He made his comments after UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had informed the U.N. that it will no longer approve UNRWA food convoys to the north of Gaza.
Expressing his alarm about the humanitarian situation, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres told reporters while visiting Jordan: "It is absolutely essential to have a massive supply of humanitarian aid now."
Israel denies blocking aid to Gaza, and says delivery of aid once inside the territory is the responsibility of the U.N. and humanitarian agencies. Israel has also accused Hamas of stealing aid, a charge the group denies.
Aid organisations say security checks and the difficulty of moving through a war zone have hindered their operations in Gaza.
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman, Writing by Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Sharon Singleton and Ros Russell)
Reuters
Mon, March 25, 2024
Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati attends an interview with Reuters at the government headquarters in downtown Beirut
CAIRO (Reuters) - Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said on Monday that countries should pressure Israel to stop attacking Lebanon following a U.N. Security Council decision calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The Israeli military and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have been trading fire across the southern Lebanese border in parallel with the Gaza war. Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the U.N. vote.
In a statement shared by his office, Mikati welcomed the move, saying it was "a first step on the path to stopping the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip".
"When it comes to Lebanon, we renew our call to concerned countries to pressure the Israeli enemy to stop its continued aggression on southern Lebanon," the statement said.
Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel could not stop its war on Hamas while there were still hostages in Gaza.
Mikati told Reuters in February that a ceasefire in Gaza would trigger indirect talks between Lebanon and Israel to reach a halt to hostilities on the southern border and to delineate the disputed border between the two countries.
Hezbollah has also said it would halt its fire into Israel if a Gaza ceasefire was reached. Israeli and U.S. officials, however, have said a ceasefire in Gaza would not automatically extend to Lebanon.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Michael Georgy and Alison Williams)
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Lebanon's Hezbollah says 2 fighters killed in Israeli attacks
AFP
Sun, March 24, 2024
Lebanese soldiers cordon off the site of a strike in Suwairi, eastern Lebanon -- a security source blamed the strike on 'Israeli aircraft' and said the Syrian driver was killed (Hassan JARRAH)
Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement on Sunday announced the death of two of its fighters in attacks by Israel, accusing the country of trying to expand its strikes.
The accusation came after security sources reported two Israeli air raids deep inside Lebanon, in the country's east.
Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group allied to Hamas, have been exchanging cross-border fire almost daily since the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants began last October.
But fears have surged of an all-out conflict in recent weeks with Israel launching air strikes deeper into eastern Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa Valley area several times.
"Today the enemy is trying to expand its attacks against civilians in Baalbek, in the western Bekaa or elsewhere," Hezbollah's deputy chief Naim Qassem said Sunday.
"There will be responses to each of them."
Hezbollah did not say where its two fighters died or give other details but said they "died as martyrs" in Israeli attacks.
Earlier Sunday an Israeli strike on a car near the Syrian border killed a man, a security source said, after overnight fire also in Lebanon's east wounded four people, a second security official said.
"Israeli aircraft targeted a vehicle in... Suwairi, killing its Syrian driver," the security source told AFP, requesting anonymity because of security concerns.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said the driver killed by the strike had been delivering food in a car that belonged to a supermarket owner.
Images from the scene showed a blue vehicle shredded and burned, with a streak of blood on the ground nearby.
Overnight Saturday, Israeli jets struck a Hezbollah centre that had been deserted for some time in the Baalbek area, the second security source told AFP, adding four people were wounded.
- Dozens of rockets -
The strike at al-Osseira, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Israel-Lebanon border, ended a period of relative calm that had lasted around 10 days.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its fighter jets "struck a Hezbollah manufacturing site containing weapons in the area of Baalbek", the main city in the Bekaa Valley.
Later, Hezbollah said it fired "more than 60 Katyusha-type rockets" at two Israeli military positions in the occupied Golan Heights in response to the Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military said "approximately 50 launches were identified from Lebanon toward northern Israel", but it did not indicate any victims or damage.
Hezbollah began near-daily attacks against Israel on October 8 in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, whose attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza. Both groups are backed by Israel's arch enemy Iran.
Hezbollah says it will only end its attacks on Israel if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned in February that a possible truce in Gaza would not affect Israel's "objective" of pushing Hezbollah back from its northern border, by force or diplomacy.
At least 326 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but including more than 50 civilians, according to an AFP count.
At least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in northern Israel, according to the military.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
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