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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. chief and several Security Council members called for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza on Friday, but the United States reiterated its opposition despite direct appeals from Arab diplomats, prompting any U.N. The action backfired. Powerful body.
The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and other major Arab countries and Turkey were in Washington on Friday on a rare joint mission to pressure the Biden administration to drop its opposition to the ceasefire. He was scheduled to meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday afternoon.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, “If people are not seeing it here, we are seeing it.” “We are talking to our people to see the challenges we are facing. They all say we are not doing anything,” he said. .Because despite all our efforts, Israel is continuing this genocide.”
more than two months of israel military operation More than 17,400 people have been killed in Gaza – 70% of them women and children – and more than 46,000 injured, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry, which says many others are trapped under debris. The ministry does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.
The Security Council was due to vote Friday afternoon on a resolution by the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative of the 15-member body, calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. However, statements by Robert Wood, the US deputy ambassador to the council, on Friday indicated that the United States would veto the resolution.
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Wood criticized the council for not condemning Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7, in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took many more. 240 mortgage.
He said the ceasefire would give Hamas control over Gaza, where more than 100 Israeli hostages are still held.
No government will allow such a threat after the worst attack on its own people in decades, Wood said, stressing that halting military action would only “sow the seeds for the next war, because Hamas will not be able to sustain There is no desire to see peace, let alone a two-state solution.
Wood said, “For this reason, while the United States strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire.”
Council convenes emergency meeting for the first time to hear from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Article 99 implemented The UN Charter, which enables the UN chief to respond to threats to international peace and security. he warned of a “Humanitarian Disaster” in Gaza and urged the Council to demand a humanitarian ceasefire.
Guterres said he raised Article 99 – which had not been used at the UN since 1971 – because “there is a high risk of a complete collapse of the humanitarian aid system in Gaza.” The UN estimates that this will result in “a complete breakdown of public order and will lead to mass displacement in Egypt,” he warned.
Gaza is at “breaking point”, he said, and desperate people are at serious risk of starvation.
Guterres said that Hamas’s brutality against Israelis on October 7 “can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
He stressed, “Although Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israel and its use of civilians as human shields are violations of the laws of war, such conduct does not absolve Israel of its violations.”
The UN chief detailed the “humanitarian nightmare” being faced by Gaza, citing intense, widespread and ongoing Israeli attacks from the air, land and sea that have reportedly destroyed 339 education facilities, 26 Hospitals, 56 health care facilities, 88 mosques and three churches were affected.
More than 60% of Gaza’s housing has reportedly been destroyed or damaged, about 85% of the population has been forced from their homes, the health system is collapsing, and “nowhere in Gaza is safe,” Guterres said. “.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the council that Israel’s aim was “the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip” and “the eviction and forced displacement of the Palestinian people”.
“If you are against the destruction and displacement of the Palestinian people, you have to be in favor of an immediate ceasefire,” Mansour said. “When you refuse to call for a ceasefire, you are refusing to call for the only thing that can end war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan stressed that regional stability and the security of Israelis and Gazans “can only be achieved after Hamas is eliminated – not a minute before.”
“Therefore the true path to ensuring peace is simply to support Israel’s mission – not at all to call for a ceasefire,” he told the council. “Israel has committed itself to destroying Hamas’s capabilities to ensure such horrors can never be repeated again. “And if Hamas is not destroyed, such horrors will be repeated.”
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