The United States pledges to veto a new Security Council resolution introduced by Algeria calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Here's what happened on Sunday, February 18, 2024.
Combat and humanitarian crisis
- In Gaza, Israeli forces launched attacks on farmland on the edge of Deir El Bala and Rafah, killing at least 10 Palestinians overnight, Wafa news agency reported.
- The agency also described “intensive shelling” in Beit Hanoun and said Israeli military raids hit al-Sekka Street in the northern Gaza Strip and the Zeitoun district of Gaza City.
- The Gaza Health Ministry announced that Israeli forces had arrested “a number” of staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
- The United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) said people were fleeing Khan Yunis due to heavy fighting.
- Palestinians in Jabalia gathered outside UNRWA headquarters in a protest demanding food be delivered to refugee camps in northern Gaza.
- UNRWA reiterated that the people of Gaza are “on the brink of starvation in the north”.
diplomacy
- Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the pattern of negotiations towards a framework for a ceasefire agreement on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in recent days was “not very encouraging”. Ta.
- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” would not be adopted in its current form.
- Algeria, which drafted the resolution, said it wanted to vote on the call for a ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday.
- The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promise to proceed with an Israeli ground offensive in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
- Senior Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu was “still playing games” when it came to negotiations.
- In a telephone conversation with the French president, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi reiterated that Egypt “resolutely rejects the forced migration of Palestinians to Egypt in any form.”
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is scheduled to begin hearings in a case examining the legal implications of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. Palestine is scheduled to hold oral arguments.
- India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said Israel “should have paid close attention to civilian casualties” and said it “should have created a sustainable humanitarian corridor to provide relief”. ”
- African Union President Azali Assoumani, speaking at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, said the Palestinian people have the right to establish their own state with Jerusalem as its capital.
regional tensions
- The visit of the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force to Baghdad has resulted in a pause in attacks on U.S. forces by Iranian-allied groups in Iraq, according to multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources cited by Reuters.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- According to Israeli and Palestinian media, residents of Turmus Aya reported that Jewish settlers entered the Palestinian village overnight and set vehicles on fire.