New Israeli strikes targeted the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, December 19, despite international pressure for a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave. A vote by the UN Security Council on a new resolution is expected on Tuesday in New York. Initially scheduled for Monday, the vote was postponed to allow negotiations to continue and avoid a new deadlock, ten days after an American veto. A week earlier, theThe General Assembly adopted this same resolution, but in a non-binding manner. Follow our live stream.
Washington will continue to deliver weapons to Israel. Visiting Tel Aviv on Monday, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin announced that the United States would continue to provide “equipment” military necessary for the Israeli army and which Washington does not want “impose a timetable” to its historic ally. At the same time, the American Minister of Defense insisted on the need to “reduce harm to civilians” and of “providing increased humanitarian assistance to the nearly two million people displaced in Gaza.”
The United States announces a coalition in the Red Sea. This coalition, which notably includes France and the United Kingdom, must respond to the attacks by Houthi rebels on international maritime traffic in the Red Sea. On Monday, the Houthis announced that they had again targeted two ships they considered “linked to Israel”.
Human Rights Watch accuses Tel Aviv of starving Gazans. The NGO claimed Monday that Israel was using “the starvation of civilians as a technique of war (…), which constitutes a war crime”. Accusations to which the Israeli government reacted by calling HRW “an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organization”.