Airstrikes and fighting continue today in the Gaza Strip, even though a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Palestinian enclave was approved for the first time on Monday, but it was met with outrage. from Israel.

Early in the morning, eyewitnesses spoke of new shelling near Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, on the closed border with Egypt, where almost 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge, the vast majority displaced from other areas of the enclave, which has been transformed in the last almost six months into a theater of bloody war between the Israeli army and Hamas. At the same time, rocket alerts were activated in areas of Israeli territory around the Gaza Strip, according to the military.

Yesterday, for the first time since the outbreak of this war, the UN Security Council adopted, with 14 votes in favor and one abstention — that of the US — a resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire.” A historical ally and protector of Israel in international forums, Washington was until yesterday against even the use of the term “ceasefire” and three times vetoed a text containing it.

The text “demands an immediate ceasefire during the month of Ramadan”, which began two weeks ago, which should lead to a “permanent ceasefire”, as well as the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.

Not to implement this decision would be “unforgivable”, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after the outcome of this vote, which was welcomed by practically all major capitals.

Israel vs. Washington

After the adoption of the decision, Israel announced the cancellation of the visit of its high-ranking delegation to the American capital. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu judged that the American abstention during the vote at the UN “harms” both the Israeli military operation and the efforts to release the hostages.

“This is a clear abandonment of the consistent US position in the Security Council since the outbreak of war” on October 7, according to a statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s services.

“We don’t have the moral right to stop the war in Gaza while there are hostages in Gaza,” countered Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad, who was visiting the US. “The outcome of this war will affect the region for years to come,” he continued, insisting on the need, according to the Netanyahu government, to “defeat” Hamas so that Israel’s security is guaranteed.

Former US President Donald Trump, often described as the most pro-Israel in history, said yesterday in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom that Israel must “end” the war in the Gaza Strip because it is about to lose “a lot of support”. internationally.

“Protection” of Gaza?

Hamas “welcomed” the UN Security Council’s decision and blamed Israel for the “failure” of talks, brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US, to declare a six-week ceasefire, accompanied by the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians interviewed by Agence France-Presse expressed satisfaction with the decision, calling on the US to exert its influence on Israel to achieve a ceasefire. “America must protect Rafah as it protected Israel,” said Bilal Awad, displaced from Khan Younis (south).

The war broke out on October 7, when Hamas’s military arm launched an unprecedented attack on southern sectors of the Israeli territory based in the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to a count of AFP based on official Israeli data. According to Israeli sources, some 250 other people were abducted that day, of whom more than 130 are believed to be still being held in the enclave — but 33 are believed to be dead.

In retaliation, Israel’s political leadership vowed to “eliminate” Hamas, a movement that it, like the US and the EU, characterizes as a “terrorist” organization. It launched a campaign of relentless air, land and sea bombardment, followed by ground operations, first in the north, then in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip. Until yesterday, in the operations of the Israeli army, at least 32,333 people had lost their lives, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas.

“Not even food”

On the ground, the situation remains critical for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the narrow strip of land that is under total siege and threatened with famine, according to the UN and international organizations.

At least two major hospitals, which Israel says have been turned into Hamas bases, have been targeted by Israeli military raids, a week after the operation began in As Shifa, Gaza City — the largest health facility in the entire enclave.

This hospital and its surroundings were shelled by artillery, according to Hamas, as was the area where Amal Hospital is located in Khan Younis. The Palestinian Red Crescent announced at night that it hastily removed 27 members of its staff from Amal, following the hasty removal the day before Sunday of displaced people who had found refuge there.

In Jabalia, in the north, residents, among them women and children, lined up yesterday to fill containers with water; they carried them in handcarts, carts, in the hands…

“We don’t even have food to give us the energy to go find water, not to mention the innocent children, women, the elderly,” resident Bassam Mohammed al-Haw said.

Humanitarian aid, which enters mainly from Egypt via Rafah, is subject to strict Israeli controls and reaches the Gaza Strip by the dropper, prompting governments in various countries to airdrop food parcels.

In the midst of a major humanitarian crisis, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, announced last Sunday that the Israeli authorities have now officially prohibited it from making any delivery of food aid in the northern part of the enclave, where the situation is dramatic.

“People are dying for a can of tuna,” said enclave resident Mohammad al-Sabawi, showing the only can of food he could find to the camera. Not far from there, another man said he gambled his life away for a tin of beans he would “share with 18 people”.