Israel is today facing new, intensifying calls from the international community to declare a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, with the United Nations Security Council expected to hold a vote, while the US promises to continue arms deliveries. and munitions to achieve the stated goal of the Israeli civil-military leadership, which is to “eliminate” Hamas.

The UN Security Council is expected to vote today on a new draft resolution which calls for an “urgent and lasting cessation of hostilities” in the Palestinian enclave, after the US vetoed previous efforts.

While it was scheduled to take place yesterday evening (New York time; midnight Greek time), that vote was postponed until today to allow for wider negotiations to take place around a new text being drawn up.

For two months now, Israel has been conducting large-scale military operations to root out Hamas, whose military arm carried out the deadliest attack in its history in southern sectors of its territory on October 7, when some 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to an AFP tally based on official statements .

About 250 other people were kidnapped and were taken to the Gaza Strip, where 129 still remain, according to authorities.

In retaliation, Israel’s military killed some 19,500 people, the vast majority of them women, children and teenagers, in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest tally by Hamas’ health ministry.

Yesterday, Tuesday, 20 Palestinians were killed in a shelling in Rafah, at the southern end of the enclave, according to the same source.

Among the victims were four children and a journalist, Adel Zorob.

Appeals

The terrifying reckoning on the Palestinian side, it reinforces the calls of diplomats of many states for a ceasefire or even a de-escalation.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron plans to meet today with his French and Italian counterparts and is expected to jointly call for a “permanent ceasefire”, according to his services.

During his visit to Israel yesterday, the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made it clear that the US will continue to supply the necessary military “equipment” to Chahal, the Israeli army, while he reaffirmed that Washington does not wish to “impose a timetable” on the historic her ally.

At the same time, the head of the American Pentagon insisted on the need to “reduce” “civilian casualties” and “offer more humanitarian aid to the nearly two million displaced” in the Gaza Strip.

Storm in the Red Sea

The threatened spread of the conflict in the region is of particular concern to the international communityparticularly due to the escalation of attacks by Yemen’s Shia Houthi rebels against international shipping in the Red Sea.

The US announced yesterday that an international coalition was being formed to “counteract” these attacks, with the participation of 10 countries, including France and the United Kingdom (but not Israel). A few hours earlier, the Houthis announced that they had targeted two more merchant ships that they believe are “connected” to the Jewish state.

In recent days, many shipping giants have announced that they are suspending their shipping crossings from the Red Sea until further notice because of the attacks which focus on the strategically important Bab al-Madeb strait, which separates the Arabian peninsula from Africa and through which 40% of the world’s trade passes.

Catastrophic humanitarian situation

Widespread devastation, mass displacement of civilians, hospitals out of order in an area under “total” siege since October 9: in the Gaza Strip, the humanitarian situation has been described as catastrophic for weeks now.

The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch accused Israel on Monday of using famine as a “technique of war”, which “constitutes a war crime”.

Categories in which the government of Benjamin Netanyahu countered that Human Rights Watch is an “anti-Semitic and anti-Israel organization”.

About 1.9 million people, in other words 85% of the population of the Gaza Strip, were forcibly displaced by the war.

Many hospitals in the enclave were turned into battlefields. Israel accuses Hamas, which it, the US and the EU characterize as a “terrorist” organization, of using health structures as bases and civilians as “human shields”, which the Palestinian Islamist movement denies.

Ash Shifa (Gaza City) and Nasser (Khan Yunis) hospitals were again the targets of deadly Israeli strikes yesterday Sunday and yesterday Monday, Hamas claimed.

Homers

The same time, contacts are underway for the eventual declaration of a new truce.

According to the Axios news website, CIA chief William Burns met in Warsaw with Israeli and Qatari officials ahead of negotiations to release the hostages.

A seven-day ceasefire in late November allowed the release of 105 hostages in Gazaamong them 80 in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians—women, children and teenagers—incarcerated in Israeli prisons.

Yesterday, Hamas released video showing three elderly hostagesthree days after the Israeli military admitted that its members had killed three other hostages, aged 25 to 28.

This video is pure “terrorism”, it shows the “brutality” of Hamas against “elderly innocent civilians in need of medical treatment”, judged yesterday the spokesman of the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari.

Bombings in Lebanon

Israeli army ‘prepares’ air strike against ‘targets’ — that is, positions and facilities — “of Hezbollah” in Lebanon, according to the spokesman.

Since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, the Lebanese Shiite movement, an ally of Iran and Hamas, has increased fire on northern Israel from southern Lebanon, with Chahal retaliating with shelling. Something that increases the fear that the armed conflict will spread.

In Beirut, the head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna yesterday called on Lebanon to show restraint, following a similar appeal the previous day in its contacts with the Israeli government.

While US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed that Hezbollah should not trigger a “wider conflict”.