The United States kept up pressure on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians during a fierce offensive against Hamas terrorists across Gaza, even as Washington vetoed a U.N. Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire.
Fighting intensified and the Palestinian death toll rose on Friday, as Israel attacked the enclave from north to south in an expanded phase of the two-month war against the Islamist group Hamas.
Denouncing a “spiraling humanitarian nightmare,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared that nowhere in Gaza was safe for civilians, hours before the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by the vast majority of its members calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The vote left Washington diplomatically isolated in the 15-member council.
Thirteen members voted in favor of the draft resolution presented by the United Arab Emirates, while Great Britain abstained.
US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the council: “We do not support this resolution’s call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war.”
Robert A. Wood, U.S. Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs to the UN, at UN headquarters in New York City, December 8, 2023. REUTERS
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The United States and Israel oppose a ceasefire, saying it would only benefit Hamas, which Israel has vowed to annihilate in response to the militants’ deadly cross-border attack on October 7.
Instead, Washington supports “pauses,” such as a seven-day halt to fighting, in which Hamas freed some hostages and increased the flow of humanitarian aid.
The agreement was broken on December 1.
Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour told the council that the vote means “millions of Palestinian lives are at stake.”
A person holds a banner during a protest outside UN headquarters as members attend a meeting to address the humanitarian crisis amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in New York City, December 8, 2023. REUTERS
Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, condemned the US veto as “inhumane.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said in a statement: “A ceasefire will only be possible with the return of all hostages and the destruction of Hamas.”
In Washington, the White House said Friday that Israel could do more to reduce civilian casualties and that the United States shared international concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“We certainly all recognize that more can be done to try to reduce civilian casualties,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sharpened Washington’s language, saying it was imperative that Israel take steps to safeguard Gaza’s civilian population.
“And there remains a gap between… the intent to protect civilians and the actual results we are seeing on the ground,” he said at a news conference.
Describing the situation as “at breaking point,” Guterres said the collapse of Gaza’s humanitarian system could result in a complete breakdown of public order.
Most Gazans are now displaced, hospitals are overwhelmed and food is running out.
Debris is scattered amid an explosion during what the Israeli military says was an operation in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, in this screenshot taken from a video posted on December 8, 2023. via REUTERS IDF soldiers are seen fighting with Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Israeli Defense Forces
Both residents and the Israeli military reported intensified fighting in areas of the north, where Israel had previously said its troops had largely completed their tasks last month, and in the south, where they mounted a new attack this week. week.
BODY COUNT
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 350 people dead on Thursday and on Friday said the death toll from Israel’s campaign in Gaza had risen to 17,487.
More attacks were reported on Friday in Khan Younis in the south, Nusseirat camp in the center and Gaza City in the north.
On Friday night, residents reported intensifying Israeli tank fire in northern Gaza, while health officials said at least 10 people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Khan Younis.
Israel’s military said 94 Israeli soldiers had died fighting in Gaza since it began its ground invasion of the densely populated enclave in mid-October in retaliation for the Hamas attack in southern Israel in which terrorists killed 1,200 people and They took more than 240 hostages.
Body camera footage shows Israeli soldiers entering a damaged building during what the Israeli military says was an operation in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, in this screenshot taken from a video posted on the 8th. December 2023. via REUTERS An explosion is seen over Gaza, seen from Israel on December 8, 2023, on Israel’s southern border. fake images
An Israeli commander, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfuss said in a video message recorded in Khan Younis that his forces were fighting house to house and “hole to hole,” referring to the tunnel shafts. As he spoke, gunshots were heard in the background.
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Since the Israeli military campaign began, most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes and residents say it has become nearly impossible to find shelter.
Israel says it is providing details about which areas are safe and that Hamas is to blame for harming civilians because it operates among them, a charge the Islamist group denies.
Hamas reported that the heaviest clashes with Israeli forces were taking place in the north, in Shejaia, as well as in the south, in Khan Younis, where Israeli forces reached the heart of the enclave’s second-largest city on Wednesday.
Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Israel had detained more than 200 suspects from Gaza in the past 48 hours and that dozens were brought to Israel for interrogation.
Reuters journalists in southern Gaza have seen dead and wounded flooding the main Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where on Friday there was no space on the floor for arriving patients lying on blood-stained tiles.
Now that fighting is raging in all directions, there is nowhere left to flee, said Yamen, sheltered in a school in central Gaza with his family.
“Inside the school it is like outside: the same feeling of fear of near death, the same suffering of starvation,” he said.
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