by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli army announced on Friday that it would expand its ground offensive into the central Gaza Strip, as the U.N. Security Council voted in favor of a resolution supposedly increase humanitarian aid in the enclave, without calling for a ceasefire.
The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution “calling for urgent measures to immediately enable secure, unimpeded and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions necessary for a lasting cessation of hostilities.”
Hamas called the resolution “an insufficient step” to meet the needs of the enclave.
“Over the past five days, the US administration has worked hard to gut this resolution and include this weak language…this goes against the wishes of the international community and the General Assembly United Nations to stop Israel’s aggression against our defenseless Palestinian people,” the Islamist organization said in a statement.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry, which is part of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, called the decision “a step in the right direction” that will help “end the aggression, ensure the arrival of aid and protect the Palestinian people.”
“We consider this a step that could contribute to alleviating the suffering of our people in the Gaza Strip,” the ministry said.
A previous version of the text called for an “urgent and lasting cessation of hostilities”.
The United States, which vetoed previous draft resolutions calling for a humanitarian truce, abstained this time.
The United States supports Israel in its counter-offensive but has expressed its concern about the humanitarian situation in the enclave of 2.3 million inhabitants, the scene for 10 weeks of an Israeli military intervention whose results are not stops getting heavier.
THE United States and Israel oppose the establishment of a ceasefire, arguing that it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead defends the idea of pauses in fighting.
According to the latest report communicated by the Gaza Ministry of Health, 20,057 people have died, including many children and women.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the way Israel was carrying out its military operation in the Gaza Strip was “creating massive obstacles in the distribution of humanitarian aid.” He called on Israeli authorities to “immediately lift restrictions on commercial activities.”
In this context, Israel has shown no sign of wanting to reduce its offensive, increasing airstrikes and artillery fire on positions held by Hamas fighters throughout the Gaza Strip.
While diplomatic efforts are increasing to try to secure a new truce between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli army methodically continues its business of “eradication” of the Islamist group responsible for the deadly attack of October 7 in the south of ‘Israel.
The IDF on Friday ordered the residents of Al Boureij, in central Gaza, to immediately move south, indicating its intention to open a new front in this area, after having devastated the north of the enclave and carried out incursions into the Khan Younès sector, further south, since the beginning of the month.
140 ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILLED
The Israeli army said it regretted the numerous civilian losses, while accusing Hamas of using the population of Gaza as a human shield, allegations rejected by the Palestinian group.
The Israeli authorities, for their part, have acknowledged the deaths of 140 soldiers since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza on October 20.
Fighting was reported on Friday on the outskirts of Al Boureij, a town built on the site of a refugee camp dating from 1948, and intense bombardments in the town and refugee camp of Djabalia, north of the enclave. , where Israeli troops are trying to advance.
Further south, where the vast majority of Gazans are now refugees in conditions of absolute precariousness, air strikes targeted Khan Younes and Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
The Egyptian authorities, who are leading mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas with Qatar, received for two days the exiled leader of the Palestinian group, Ismaïl Haniyeh, but this visit did not lead to any concrete progress, Hamas and Islamic Jihad having rejected in the evening the idea of a new release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners unless there is a complete cessation of Israeli aggression.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, for his part, declared that negotiations on the release of hostages were continuing, refusing, however, to provide more details.
More than a hundred hostages were released during a one-week humanitarian truce at the end of November.
(Reporting by Bassam Masoud in Gaza, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, writing by Grant McCool and Alex Richardson; French version Camille Raynaud and Tangi Salaün, editing by Blandine Hénault)
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