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The United States pledges to veto a new UN Security Council resolution presented by Algeria that demands an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Here’s how things go on Sunday February 18, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- In Gaza, at least 10 Palestinians were killed overnight after Israeli forces launched attacks on Deir el-Balah and farmland on the outskirts of Rafah, according to the Wafa news agency.
- The agency also described “intensive shelling” in Beit Hanoon and said Israeli raids hit Al-Sekka Street and the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, in the north of the Strip.
- Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli forces arrested a “large number” of workers at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
- Intense fighting is pushing people to flee Khan Younis, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said.
- Palestinians in Jabalia gathered outside the UNRWA headquarters in protest calling for the delivery of food to the northern Gaza refugee camp.
- UNRWA stressed once again that the population of Gaza is “on the brink of famine in the north.”
Diplomacy
- Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the progress of negotiations for a framework ceasefire agreement for the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was “not very promising” in recent days.
- US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said a UN Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” would not pass in its current form.
- Algeria, which drafted the resolution, said it wanted to put the call for a ceasefire in Gaza to a vote on Tuesday.
- The UN special rapporteur on Palestine has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to continue the Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza town of Rafah.
- Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas spokesperson, told Tel Aviv Tribune that Netanyahu was “always playing games” over the negotiations.
- President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi reiterated Egypt’s “categorical rejection of the movement of Palestinians to Egypt in any form” during a call with the French president.
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to open public hearings in a case examining the legal implications of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Palestine will present its oral arguments.
- Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Israel “should have been very attentive to civilian casualties” and called for a “sustainable humanitarian corridor to provide relief”.
- African Union Chairman Azali Assoumani, speaking at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, said the Palestinian people have the right to create their own state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Regional tensions
- A visit by the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force to Baghdad led to a pause in attacks on U.S. troops by Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, according to multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources cited by the news agency. Reuters.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Residents of Turmus Aya reported that Jewish settlers entered the Palestinian village overnight, setting vehicles on fire, according to Israeli and Palestinian media.
