The US pledges to veto a new UNSC resolution put forth by Algeria that demands an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Here’s how things stand 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 edges 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 neighbourhood in Gaza City, in the strip’s north.
- The Ministry of Health in Gaza said Israeli forces arrested a “large number” of workers at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
- Intense fighting is causing people to flee Khan Younis, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said.
- Palestinians in Jabalia have gathered outside UNRWA headquarters in a protest calling for food to be delivered to the refugee camp in northern Gaza.
- UNRWA has stressed once again that people in Gaza are “on the verge of famine in the north”.
Diplomacy
- Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the pattern of negotiations for a framework ceasefire deal 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” will not be adopted in its current form.
- Algeria, which drafted the resolution, said it wants to put the call for a ceasefire in Gaza to a vote on Tuesday.
- The UN special rapporteur on Palestine slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to push on with Israel’s ground offensive in the city of Rafah in Gaza.
- Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas spokesperson, told Al Jazeera Netanyahu is “still playing games” on negotiations.
- President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi reiterated Egypt’s “categorical rejection of the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt in any shape or form” in a call with the French president.
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to begin public hearings in a case examining the legal implications of Israel’s occupation of the 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 mindful of civilian casualties” and called for a “sustainable humanitarian corridor to provide relief”.
- African Union Chairperson Azali Assoumani, speaking at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, said the people of Palestine have the right to establish their own state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Regional tensions
- A visit by the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force to Baghdad has led to a pause in attacks on US troops by Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, according to multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources quoted by the Reuters news agency.
Violence in occupied West Bank
- Residents of Turmus Aya reported that Jewish settlers entered the Palestinian village overnight, setting vehicles on fire, according to the Israeli and Palestinian media.
