US says it does not support calls for immediate ceasefire in GazaThe US ambassador to the UN, Robert A. Wood, has said his country does not support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that it “would only plant the seeds for the next war”.
Wood, speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, said the security council’s failure to condemn the Hamas 7 October attacks on Israel was a serious moral failure.
Hamas continues to pose a threat to Israel, he said, adding that an “undeniable part of that reality” that if Israel unilaterally laid down its weapons today, Hamas would continue to hold hostages. He said:
For that reason, while the US strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israel and Palestine can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire. This would only plant the seeds for the next war, because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a two-state solution.
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Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, has called for an immediate end to the fighting in Gaza, but said governments worldwide do not seem to see it as a priority.
Prince Faisal, at a press conference before meeting Arab foreign minister and the US secretary of state Antony Blinken, said:
Our message is consistent and clear that we believe that it is absolutely necessary to end the fighting immediately.
But he said “one of the disturbing facts” is that “ending the conflict and the fighting doesn’t seem to be the main priority,” for the world.
He added that it was “unacceptable” that aid going into Gaza has been restricted because of “bureaucratic obstacles”.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan attends a news conference about the Israel-Gaza war. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/APWhat is article 99 of the UN charter?The UN security council is expected to vote in less than an hour’s time on a resolution that would demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The vote comes after the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, invoked a rarely exercised power this week to warn the security council of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, and to urge members to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
The UN chief involved article 99 of the UN charter which permits the secretary general to bring a threat to world security to the attention of the security council. It was the first time he had invoked the article since he took on the role of UN secretary general in 2017.
I’ve just invoked Art.99 of the UN Charter – for the 1st time in my tenure as Secretary-General.
Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the Council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe & appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared. pic.twitter.com/pA0eRXZnFJ
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) December 6, 2023 The last time article 99 was invoked was during fighting in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh and its separation from Pakistan.
In his letter, Guterres described “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories” and said “the capacity of the UN and its humanitarian partners had been decimated by supply shortages, lack of fuel, interrupted communications and growing insecurity”.
He said the conditions for meaningful humanitarian operations did not exist amid the fighting. He added: “Without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to break down soon due to the desperate conditions.”
Following his letter, the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the security council, circulated a short resolution to members late Wednesday calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
The vote is scheduled to take place at 8pm UK time or 3pm Eastern time. The US has said it does not support a ceasefire.
The director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) affairs has said society is “on the brink of full-blown collapse” in Gaza.
Thomas White, posting to social media, said:
Civil order is breaking down in #Gaza – the streets feel wild, particularly after dark – some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned.
He said the UN agency continues to serve the population of the Palestinian territory with what limited aid it has.
Civil order is breaking down in #Gaza – the streets feel wild, particularly after dark – some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned. Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse. @UNRWA continues to serve the population with what limted aid we have.
— Thomas White (@TomWhiteGaza) December 8, 2023 EU announces €125m of humanitarian aid for PalestiniansThe European Commission has announced it will provide €125m (£107.2m) in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in 2024.
The funds will go toward supporting humanitarian organisations working in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the commission said in a statement today.
The assistance is delivered through the UN humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organisations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as local aid organisations partnering with them, it said.
In Gaza, where the commission said humanitarian needs are “at an all-time high”, the new funding will focus on life-saving emergency response, and restoring access to basic needs like water, food, healthcare, shelter and sanitation.
In the West Bank, where the commission said many Palestinian communities are “at risk of displacement or already forcibly displaced”, the funding will provide protection services, such as legal aid or material assistance, and will support their access to basic services and education in emergencies.
A Palestinian man has said he was handcuffed and blindfolded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in northern Gaza on Thursday.
The 22-year-old man, who was among the dozens of Palestinian men detained by IDF soldiers yesterday, told the BBC:
They (the IDF) forced us to sit in the middle of [the] street for almost three hours, then trucks came, they handcuffed and blindfolded us and they took us to an unknown place.
He said that when they arrived at the location, the men were randomly selected for questioning and interrogated about their relationship with Hamas.
He said he, his father, brother and five cousins were taken to a sandy place and left almost naked but given a blanket at night. He said:
They released all of us, except my father and eldest cousin. My father works for UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestinian refugees]. I don’t know why they took him.
Palestinians inspecting the debris of the Jaffa hospital in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/ShutterstockThe UK’s ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, has said Israel must be “targeted and precise” in achieving its goal “to defend itself against Hamas terrorism”.
Woodward, speaking at the security council, said the sheer scale of civilians killed in Gaza was “shocking”, and said civilians must be protected.
She added that the world needed to “work to avoid escalation” in violence in the occupied West Bank, noting that Israel’s announcements approving new settlements there was alarming and that it would only raise tensions. She said:
Let us be clear: settlements are illegal under international law. They present an obstacle to peace, and they threaten the physical viability and delivery of a two-state solution.
Wilfred Chan
The 21-second clip went viral almost as soon as it was posted early on Sunday evening. It showed hundreds of protesters, some with Palestinian flags, united in a rhyming chant: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”
They were protesting outside Goldie, a vegan falafel restaurant owned by Michael Solomonov, the Israel-born celebrity chef best known for Zahav, an Israeli-themed restaurant widely considered one of the United States’ finest eateries. It was one brief stop along a march traversing Philadelphia that lasted about three hours.
Many of the protesters hadn’t even returned home from the march when the condemnations began to pour in. The Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, posted on X: “Tonight in Philly, we saw a blatant act of antisemitism – not a peaceful protest. A restaurant was targeted and mobbed because its owner is Jewish and Israeli. This hate and bigotry is reminiscent of a dark time in history.” Even the White House piled on: it was “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy”, said the deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates.
Chef Michael Solomonov in Philadelphia in 2016. Photograph: Lisa Lake/Getty Images for AudiIt was the apex of a saga that has resulted in at least three workers fired from Solomonov’s restaurants over, as they see it, their pro-Palestine activism coming into conflict with their bosses’ views and policies, and at least one other worker who has resigned in protest – thrusting the renowned Israeli eateries into the thick of bitter US disagreements over the Israel-Hamas war.
Interviews with protesters and current and former employees at Solomonov’s restaurants paint a more complex version of events than what the video clip may have suggested. They reject the notion that Goldie was singled out because of the owners’ ethnicity, arguing that their objections stem from management using the restaurants to fundraise for Israel after 7 October in spite of worker concerns. Activists also say their protest shines a necessary spotlight on the political commitments of one of the highest-profile restaurateurs in the United States.
Read the full story: A protest against a top Israel-born chef was called antisemitic. Staff tell a different story
The US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, said Israel must respect international humanitarian law and conduct its operations in a way that minimises civilian harm.
Wood, speaking at the UN security council, said:
In every conversation we also have underscored that Israel must avoid further mass displacement of civilians in the south of Gaza, many of whom previously fled violence.
He added that civilians displaced in Gaza must be able to return as soon as conditions permit, adding that “under no circumstances would the US support forced relocation of Palestinians”.
The US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, speaks during a UN security council meeting on Gaza. Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AFP/Getty ImagesUS says it does not support calls for immediate ceasefire in GazaThe US ambassador to the UN, Robert A. Wood, has said his country does not support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that it “would only plant the seeds for the next war”.
Wood, speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, said the security council’s failure to condemn the Hamas 7 October attacks on Israel was a serious moral failure.
Hamas continues to pose a threat to Israel, he said, adding that an “undeniable part of that reality” that if Israel unilaterally laid down its weapons today, Hamas would continue to hold hostages. He said:
For that reason, while the US strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israel and Palestine can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire. This would only plant the seeds for the next war, because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a two-state solution.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, did not give a concrete vision of a postwar plan discussed with US officials under which the PA would take over control of Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that Israel would not accept rule over Gaza by the Palestinian Authority (PA) as it stands.
Abbas told Reuters:
The United States tells us that it supports a two-state solution, that Israel is not allowed to occupy Gaza, to keep security control of Gaza or to expropriate land from Gaza. America doesn’t force Israel to implement what it says.
Mahmoud Abbas with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in Ramallah in November. Photograph: Nasser Nasser/APHe said the US, which “fully” supports Israel, “bears the responsibility of what is happening” in Gaza, adding:
It is the only power that is capable of ordering Israel to stop the war and fulfil its obligations, but unfortunately it doesn’t. America is an accomplice of Israel.
The leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has called for an international peace conference to end the war in Gaza and work out a lasting political solution that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Abbas, in an interview with Reuters in Ramallah, said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that required an international conference and guarantees by world powers.
Besides Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, he said Israeli forces had intensified their attacks everywhere in the occupied West Bank over the past year. He said:
I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
He said based on a binding international agreement, he would revive the weakened Palestinian Authority (PA), implement long-awaited reforms, and hold presidential and parliamentary elections, which were suspended after Hamas won in 2006 and later pushed the PA out of Gaza.
Asked whether he would risk holding elections given the possibility that Hamas could win, as it did in 2006, he said: “Whoever wins wins, these will be democratic elections.”
Israel envoy rejects ceasefire in UNSC addressIsrael’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, firmly rejected calls for a ceasefire as he addressed the security council.
Erdan said regional stability in the Middle East could “only be achieved once Hamas is eliminated”. Calling for a ceasefire would not achieve that end, he said.
Gilad Erdan speaks during a UN security council meeting on Gaza. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesHe said Hamas’s main weapon was terror and was seeking to “maximise civilian casualties” to put more and more pressure on Israel to relent. He added that calling for a ceasefire would ensure that the suffering and the fighting in Gaza would continue.
He said that if Hamas was not destroyed, then atrocities would be carried out by the group “again and again”.
Israel would continue with its mission while supporting “every humanitarian initiative”, but the destruction of Hamas was the only option, Erdan said.
Israeli objective is ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza Strip, says Palestinian ambassador to UN in call for immediate ceasefireThe Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, thanked the UN secretary general’s “crystal clear” speech calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Mansour, addressing the security council, said if anyone says they are against the destruction and displacement of Palestinian people, then they must be in favour of an immediate ceasefire.
When you refuse to call for a ceasefire, you are refusing to call for the only thing that can put an end to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This is how Israel is conducting the war, through atrocities.
He said Israel’s military actions in Gaza have “besieged and bombed our people and deprived them of all requirements of life”, adding:
I keep reading in the media that Israel has no clear war objectives. Are we supposed to pretend that we don’t know the objective is the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip?
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said Israeli strikes on Gaza had “placed very possible impediment on humanitarian aid and access”.
Addressing the security council, Mansour said the aim of Israel’s war was not security, but to “prevent for ever any prospect of Palestinian impudence and peace.
“These intentions are clear in the Gaza Strip as well as in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” he said.
He noted the universality of international law, adding that “Israeli exceptionalism has to end, and it has to end now”.
The Palestinian people will not die in vain, the Palestinian people deserve respect … we have earned it, we have paid the heaviest price to end it … show us respect, not in words but in deeds, show us respect for our lives and our rights.
Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, speaks during a UN security council meeting in New York. Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Palestinian Authority (PA) is working with US officials on a plan to govern Gaza after the war is over, the authority’s prime minister has said.
In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Mohammad Shtayyeh said his preferred outcome would be for Hamas to become a junior partner under the broader Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), helping to build a new independent state that includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
“Hamas before 7 October is one thing and after is another thing,” the Palestinian prime minister said.
If they are ready to come to an agreement and accept the political platform of the PLO, then there will be room for talk. Palestinians should not be divided.