The United States has for the first time announced a draft resolution at the UN calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in the famine-hit Gaza Strip, where dozens of Palestinians have died in renewed bombings Israelis.
This change in position of the United States, historic allies of Israel, was announced Wednesday evening by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Saudi Arabia, the first stop of his new tour in the Middle East which took him to Egypt on Thursday before a visit to Israel on Friday.
But Mr. Blinken stressed that this ceasefire should be linked to the release of hostages kidnapped and taken to Gaza during the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil, which sparked the war .
In the sixth month of this devastating conflict, the international community is redoubling its efforts to achieve a truce in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the human toll which continues to increase with more than 31,988 dead according to a latest report from the ministry of Hamas Health.
On Thursday, the same ministry announced the deaths of nearly 70 Palestinians in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, with witnesses reporting nighttime raids in the center of the besieged Palestinian territory and violent fighting around al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City in the north.
In total, “more than 140” Palestinian fighters have been killed since the Israeli operation against the hospital began on Monday, the army said after claiming that Hamas leaders had hidden there.
“We have submitted a resolution which is now before the Security Council which calls for an immediate ceasefire linked to the release of the hostages and we very much hope that countries will support it,” Blinken told the Saudi media Al Hadath.
Since the start of the war, the United States had vetoed several UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and lasting ceasefires in the Palestinian territory devastated by incessant Israeli bombardments.
But they then intensified their efforts to reach a truce that would allow the entry of more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip where according to the UN the majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants are now threatened with famine.
“Of course we stand with Israel and its right to defend itself […] but at the same time, it is imperative that the civilians who are in danger and who are suffering so terribly — that we focus on them, that we make them a priority,” Mr. Blinken said.
Agreement or impasse?
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on sources. Israeli officials.
Around 250 people were kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, 33 of whom are dead according to Israeli authorities.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007. Its army launched a campaign of aerial bombardments in the cramped territory followed by a ground offensive that allowed its soldiers to advance from north to south, near from Rafah.
During his sixth tour of the Middle East since the start of the war, Mr. Blinken met President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi in Cairo on Thursday and is due to see the heads of diplomacy of five Arab countries.
At the same time, representatives of international mediators — the United States, Qatar, Egypt — are holding talks on a truce in Doha.
“I think the gap is closing and a deal is very possible,” Blinken told Al Hadath of the talks in Doha.
But a Hamas official said the same day that Israel’s response to his movement’s truce proposal, transmitted by mediators to Qatar, was “overall negative” and could “lead the negotiations to an impasse.”
Relations are tense between the American and Israeli allies, with the United States pushing Israel for a ceasefire and calling on it not to launch a major ground offensive on Rafah which it says would lead to “more innocent victims “.
In this city backed by Egypt’s closed border and bombarded almost daily by the Israeli air force, there are around 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority displaced by the war.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps repeating that an operation in Rafah is necessary to achieve his goal of “defeating” Hamas, which he considers a terrorist group along with the United States and the European Union. .
“Siege, hunger, diseases”
In order to provide some relief to the Palestinian civilian population, several countries are organizing daily airdrops of food and have opened a maritime corridor from Cyprus. But everyone emphasizes that these supply routes cannot replace land routes.
Since October 9, Israel has imposed a complete siege on the Gaza Strip, already subject to a total blockade since 2007 after an Israeli occupation of 38 years (1967-2005).
The UN points to the severe security restrictions imposed by Israel on the entry of all aid into Gaza by land, via Egypt.
“The siege, hunger and disease will soon become the main causes of death in Gaza,” warned the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, on X.