The United States vows to veto a new UN Security Council resolution introduced by Algeria that demands an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
This is how things stand on Sunday, February 18, 2024:
Struggles 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 edge of Rafah, according to the Wafa news agency.
- The agency also described “intensive shelling” in Beit Hanoon and said the Israeli strikes 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 the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
- Intense fighting is causing people to flee Khan Younis, the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said.
- Palestinians in Jabalia gathered in front of the UNRWA headquarters in a protest calling for food to be delivered to the refugee camp in northern Gaza.
- UNRWA has once again stressed that the population of Gaza is “on the verge of famine in the north”.
Diplomacy
- Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the pattern of negotiations for a ceasefire framework 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” 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 sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promise to continue Israel's ground offensive on the Gaza city of Rafah.
- Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu is “still playing around” in the negotiations.
- President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi reiterated Egypt's “categorical rejection of the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt in any 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 Palestinian territory. Palestine will present its oral arguments.
- Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Israel “should have been well aware of the civilian casualties” and called for a “sustainable humanitarian corridor to provide aid.”
- African Union President 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 prompted a pause in attacks on US troops by Iranian-aligned groups in Iraq, according to multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources cited by the Reuters news agency.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Residents of Turmus Aya reported that Jewish settlers entered the Palestinian village overnight and set vehicles on fire, according to Israeli and Palestinian media.
