UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned that the Gaza Strip was in the midst of an “epic humanitarian catastrophe,” as calls grew for a cease-fire to replace the temporary truce between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants.
“Intense negotiations are taking place to prolong the truce – which we strongly welcome — but we believe we need a true humanitarian cease-fire,” he told a meeting of the UN Security Council, chaired by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi because China is president of the 15-member council for November.
Last-minute talks continued between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas on Wednesday to extend a truce in Gaza.
“We should work for a comprehensive and lasting cease-fire with the greatest urgency,” Wang told the council. “There is no firewall in Gaza either. Resumed fighting would only, most likely, turn into a calamity that devours the whole region.”
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan — standing with counterparts from Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Turkiye, Indonesia and Malaysia — told reporters at the United Nations that aid entering Gaza was “far less than is needed.”
“The danger is that if ... this truce expires we will return to the killing at the scale that we have seen, which is unbearable,” he said. “So we are here to make a clear statement that a truce is not enough. What is needed is a cease-fire.”
Addressing the Security Council, Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan accused the ministers of supporting “a terror organization that aims to annihilate Israel.”
“Anyone who supports a cease-fire basically supports Hamas continued reign of terror in Gaza. Hamas is a genocidal terror organization — they don’t hide it — not a reliable partner for peace,” Erdan said.
Civilian protection
Israel says Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostage in a surprise assault on Oct. 7. Israel has focused its retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, bombarding it from the air, imposing a siege and launching a ground assault.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said everything possible must be done to scale up aid and protect civilians, including UN staff and journalists.
“The United States has urged Israel to take every possible measure to prevent civilian casualties as it exercises its rights to safeguard its people from acts of terror,” she told the Security Council, adding that Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields “does not lessen Israel’s responsibility.”
More than 15,000 people are confirmed killed, some 40 percent of them under the age of 18, according to Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations. Many more are feared buried under the ruins.
“The truce must become a cease-fire, a permanent cease-fire. The massacres cannot be allowed to resume,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki told the Security Council.
“Our people are faced with an existential threat. Make no mistake about it. With all the talk about the destruction of Israel, it is Palestine that is facing a plan to destroy it, implemented in broad daylight,” he said.
Guterres briefed the Security Council on the implementation of a resolution it adopted earlier this month that called for humanitarian pauses in fighting to allow aid access and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
The United Nations has scaled up the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza — a coastal enclave of 2.3 million people — during the truce, but Guterres said the level of aid “remains completely inadequate to meet the huge needs.”
“The people of Gaza are in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world,” he said. “We must not look away.”
UN chief says Gaza in midst of ‘epic humanitarian catastrophe’
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UN chief says Gaza in midst of ‘epic humanitarian catastrophe’
- Chinese foreign minister says resumed fighting in Gaza will most likely devour the whole region
- Saudi foreign minister warns aid entering Gaza is 'far less than is needed,' demands ceasefire
Flights resume between Mashhad and Dammam
DUBAI: Iran Air on Tuesday resumed flights between Mashhad and Dammam after a nine year hiatus, the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) reported.
“A deputy from Iran’s embassy, the representative of Iran Air and representatives from Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation welcomed arriving passengers in Dammam and stressed the need to facilitate the movement of people between the two countries,” ISNA said.
Lebanon asked US, France to press Israel to halt truce breaches, say sources
- The truce came into effect on Nov. 27 and prohibits Israel from conducting offensive military operations in Lebanon
- Lebanon’s parliament speaker says Beirut had logged at least 54 Israeli violations of the ceasefire so far
BEIRUT: Top Lebanese officials have urged Washington and Paris to press Israel to uphold a ceasefire, after dozens of military operations on Lebanese soil that Beirut has deemed violations, two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
Deadly Israeli strikes on south Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket launches on an Israeli military post on Monday have put a US-brokered ceasefire between the two in an increasingly fragile position less than a week after it came into effect.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally who negotiated the deal on behalf of Lebanon, spoke to officials at the White House and French presidency late Monday and expressed concern about the state of the ceasefire, the sources said.
Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry were immediately available to comment. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar on Monday, saying both sides should adhere to the ceasefire.
US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters on Monday that the ceasefire “is holding” and that the US had “anticipated that there might be violations.”
The truce came into effect on Nov. 27 and prohibits Israel from conducting offensive military operations in Lebanon while requiring Lebanon to prevent armed groups, including Hezbollah, from launching attacks on Israel. It gives Israeli troops 60 days to withdraw from south Lebanon.
A monitoring mechanism chaired by the United States is tasked with monitoring, verifying and helping enforce the truce, but it has yet to begin work.
Berri on Monday urged it to “urgently” ensure Israel halts its breaches, saying Beirut had logged at least 54 Israeli violations of the ceasefire so far.
Israel says its continued military activity in Lebanon is aimed at enforcing the ceasefire and does not violate its obligations under the truce.
Mikati on Monday met in Beirut with US General Jasper Jeffers, who will chair the monitoring committee, and stressed the need for Israeli troops to swiftly withdraw.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that France’s representative to the committee, General Guillaume Ponchin, will arrive in Beirut on Wednesday and that the committee would hold its first meeting on Thursday.
“There is an urgency to finalize the mechanism, otherwise it will be too late,” the source said, referring to Israel’s gradual intensification of strikes despite the truce.
Miller said the monitoring mechanism would begin its work “in the coming days.”
At least 12 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Monday, Lebanese authorities said, in the deadliest day since the ceasefire came into effect.
They included six people in the southern town of Hariss and another four people in the southern town of Taloussa, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media
- An Israeli air strike hit a car on the Damascus airport road on Tuesday, causing it to explode
DAMASCUS: An Israeli air strike hit a car on the Damascus airport road on Tuesday, causing it to explode, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.
“A car exploded after it was targeted in an Israeli aggression on the road to Damascus International Airport,” SANA reported, citing a police source, without saying who was targeted or if there were any casualties.
Hamas, Fatah agree on joint committee to run post-war Gaza
CAIRO: Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party have agreed to create a committee to jointly administer post-war Gaza, negotiators from both sides said Tuesday.
Under the plan, which needs Abbas’s approval, the committee would be composed of 10 to 15 non-partisan figures with authority on matters related to the economy, education, health, humanitarian aid and reconstruction, according to a draft of the proposal seen by AFP.
Iraqi armed group urges government to deploy troops to Syria
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s powerful Iran-aligned Kataeb Hezbollah armed group has called on Baghdad to send troops to Syria to support the Damascus government against a militant offensive.
Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, made the appeal in a statement shared on pro-Iranian Telegram channels late Monday. Excerpts were also posted on its official website.
The militant offensive, led by Islamists, has seized the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, stirring concern in political and security circles in neighboring Iraq.
A spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah, part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance,” said the group had not yet decided to deploy its own fighters but urged Baghdad to act.
“We believe the Iraqi government should take the initiative to send regular military forces in coordination with the Syrian government, as these groups pose a threat to Iraq’s national security and the region,” the spokesman said.
Kataeb Hezbollah has previously fought in Syria alongside forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
In Iraq, it is part of the Hashed Al-Shaabi, a coalition of former paramilitary forces now integrated into the regular armed forces.
This coalition, under the Iraqi prime minister’s command, denies involvement outside Iraq’s borders.
Iraq remains scarred by the rise of the Daesh group in 2014, which saw the extremists capture nearly a third of the country before being defeated in 2017.
On Monday, Iraq said it had sent armored vehicles to bolster security along its 600-kilometer (370-mile) border with Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the deployment of about 200 pro-Iranian Iraqi fighters in Syria’s Aleppo region to back government forces.
