After more than five months of war, the UN Security Council adopted its first resolution on Monday demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, a call blocked several times by the United States, which this time abstained.
The resolution adopted by 14 votes in favor, with one abstention, “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan” – which already began two weeks ago –, which should “lead to a lasting ceasefire » and “demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.
Dozens of Israeli strikes hit the Gaza Strip on Monday, where fighting rages near several large hospitals in the north and south of the Palestinian territory, besieged and threatened with famine.
After five and a half months of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, truce talks continue in Qatar without any sign of progress, as the UN Security Council will try again on Monday to adopt a text demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
The bombings which left 107 dead in 24 hours, according to the Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health, notably targeted Rafah and Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, as well as Gaza City, in the North, and the center of the territory.
At least two large hospitals, accused by Israel of housing Hamas bases, are targeted by army operations, a week after the start of the intervention launched on March 18 against the al-Chifa hospital in Gaza. city, the largest in the territory.
This hospital and its surroundings were targeted by artillery fire on Monday, according to Hamas authorities, as were the surroundings of the al-Amal hospital in Khan Younes, which had been besieged since the day before. Witnesses also reported an incursion on Sunday near the Nasser hospital, near al-Amal.
“No food”
The Palestinian Red Crescent indicated on Monday that only nine patients and a few civilians remained in the al-Amal hospital, apart from the staff, after the evacuation on Sunday of the displaced people who had found refuge there.
More than 20 Palestinian fighters were killed in the al-Amal area on Sunday, according to the army.
The army announced that it would continue its “targeted” operations in al-Chifa hospital, where around “500 terrorists” have been arrested so far and 170 others killed.
But according to Hamas authorities, the army destroyed around twenty houses with explosives as well as a building in the Al-Rimal district, close to the hospital, where witnesses reported fighting on Monday.
Hundreds of civilians have fled the area over the past week.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Sunday for an “immediate ceasefire” and denounced the “endless nightmare” experienced by the population of Gaza.
In Jabaliya, in the north, residents, many of them women and children, lined up to fill cans of water which they carried in wheelbarrows, carts or with the strength of their arms.
“We don’t even have food to give us the energy to fetch water, let alone innocent children, women and the elderly,” said one man, Bassam Mohammed al-Haou.
“We are suffering a lot from the lack of water, all the pipes and pumps have stopped working since the start of the war,” another man, Falah Saed, told AFP.
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mainly civilians, according to a count. from AFP established from official Israeli data.
According to Israel, around 250 people have been kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, of whom 33 are believed to have died.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union. Its army launched an offensive that has so far left 32,333 people dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to Hamas’ health ministry.