Newsdeck
UN calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Biden warns Israel is losing support
CAIRO/GAZA, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Tuesday demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as U.S. President Joe Biden warned Israel it was losing international support because of its "indiscriminate" bombing of civilians in its war against Hamas militants.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Bassam Masoud
After dire warnings by U.N. officials about a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire with 153 countries voting in favour and 23 abstaining. The U.S. and Israel, which argue a ceasefire only benefits Hamas, voted against the measure along with eight other countries.
The resolution is not binding but carries political weight, reflecting a global view on the war. The United States vetoed a similar call in the 15-member Security Council last week.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the resolution and urged countries to pressure Israel to adopt the ceasefire. A Hamas official in exile, Izzat El-Reshiq, in a statement on Telegram echoed that reaction, saying Israel should “stop its aggression, genocide, and ethnic cleansing against our people.”
Before the resolution passed, Biden said Israel now has support from “most of the world” including the U.S. and European Union. “But they’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” he told a campaign donor event in Washington.
Israel’s assault on Gaza to root out Hamas has killed at least 18,205 Palestinians and wounded nearly 50,000 since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israel launched its onslaught after a cross-border raid by Hamas fighters who killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel on Tuesday declared 19 of 134 people still in captivity in Gaza dead in absentia after the bodies of two hostages were recovered.
In Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s main city, residents said on Tuesday Israeli tank shelling was now focused on the city centre. One said tanks were operating in the street where the house of Yahya Al-Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, is located.
After nightfall, Israeli air strikes on Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip killed 11 Palestinians, including two children, health officials said.
An older Palestinian, Tawfik Abu Breika, earlier said his residential block in Khan Younis was hit without warning by an Israeli air strike that brought down several buildings and caused casualties.
“The world’s conscience is dead, no humanity or any kind of morals,” Breika told Reuters as neighbours sifted through rubble. “This is the third month that we are facing death and destruction.”
Further south in Rafah, which borders Egypt, health officials said an Israeli air strike on houses overnight killed 22 people, including children. Civil emergency workers were searching for more victims under the rubble.
Residents said the shelling of Rafah, where the Israeli army this month ordered people to head for their safety, was some of the heaviest in days.
“At night we can’t sleep because of the bombing, and in the morning, we tour the streets looking for food for the children. There is no food,” said Abu Khalil, 40, a father of six.
The U.N. World Food Programme says half of Gaza’s population is starving. “There’s no electricity, no fuel, no water, no medicine,” resident Mohammed Obaid said as he inspected debris in Rafah.
The Gaza health ministry said that diseases and illnesses including diarrhea, food poisoning, meningitis, respiratory infections, chickenpox and scabies were spreading.
LOSING SUPPORT
In addition to warning that Israel was starting to lose international support, Biden said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed to change his hard-line government and that ultimately Israel “can’t say no” to an independent Palestinian state – something that Israeli hardliners oppose.
In a further sign of world concern over the conduct of the conflict, now in its third month, Australia, Canada and New Zealand said they supported international efforts toward a sustainable ceasefire and expressed alarm at the plight of civilians in Gaza.
“The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians,” leaders of the three countries said in a joint statement.
The three countries said they supported Palestinians’ right to self-determination, but that there could be no role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza.
ROCKET FIRE
Israel’s military said that over the past day it hit several posts that were used to fire rockets at its territory, raided a Hamas compound where it found some 250 rockets among other weapons and struck a weapons production factory.
The ground assault that started in the north has expanded to the southern half of the Gaza Strip since a week-long truce collapsed at the start of December. More than 100 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground invasion began in late October.
The Wall Street Journal and ABC reported that the Israeli military has begun pumping seawater into Hamas’ tunnel complex, where the militant group is believed to be hiding fighters and munitions and basing hit-and-run attacks on Israeli troops in street fighting.
Biden said he had heard unconfirmed reports there were no hostages in the tunnels. Some hostages freed during a ceasefire reported they had been held in tunnels. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.
Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said Israeli forces had raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday and detained its director, Dr. Ahmed Al-Kahlout, along with all medical staff.
They were being interrogated within the emergency department, he said. Israel’s military did not reply to a request for comment on the incident.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Bassam Masoud in Gaza, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Humeyra Pamuk and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington, Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Henriette Chacar in Jerusalem, Tom Perry in Beirut, Clauda Tanios in Dubai, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Aiden Lewis and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo; Writing by Angus MacSwan and Cynthia Osterman; Editing by Alison Williams, Deepa Babington and Lisa Shumaker)
I have to agree. As a long term Israeli supporter, even I am becoming disillusioned by the situation in Gaza.
If Israel would release the footage from 7 October to backup their claims of beheaded kids etc, then the world might shift back to supporting them, but they refuse to do it, leading some to conclude that 7 October was not as bad as they made it out to be…
The ‘beheadings’ have already proved to be fake news distributed by an Israeli extreme right wing organisation.
And what else is fake news?
Max Blumenthal pointed out that the pictures of the Oct 7 “rape victims” used as evidence that Hamas raped their victims; were pictures from 2022 of Kurdish female soldiers.
Ah, Max Blumenthal again. The Ronnie Kasrils of objective reporting about all things Jewish
Read the news with an open mind
The “killing of babies” has been used to garner World support before:
1) The English used it as a reason to murder countless number of IRA activists
2) The Kuwaiti Ambassador’s daughter stated to congress: “… the Iraqi soldiers entered the hospitals and removed babies from the incubators and threw them on the floor …”. This was for the World to see how evil the Iraqi regime was and further justify the “Iraqi War”. The statement was later retracted as it was “unconfirmed”.
3) Used by the IDF. The number 40 begs the question, why not 9, 18 or even 27? Where did Hamas have the time to find 40 babies?
And what were 40 babies doing at a music festival? Israel was reported by Israelis that the IDF opened fire on the Kibbutz to get to Hamas – indiscriminately. Netanyahu initially said if the captive Israelis paid the price it would not stop them from going into Gaza. The IDF killed two unarmed captives carrying white flags, seeking help. There’s more, how can anyone believe them?
Try Israel Realtime or Israel Live News on WhatsApp groups for these. Sites like this (Daily Maverick) will not give an Israeli or IDF platform.
Better still have a look at IDF telegram channel ” 78 virgins” for the IDF videos that cannot be shown on mainstream tv or other social media even X with their new rules would not allow those videos.
sorry 72 virgins
No Joe, they don’t have support.
Ashke-nazis.
Why doesn’t the UN pass a resolution demanding the release of civilian hostages?
Because isreal does not respect UN resolutions, last count 28….
Correction
How many times has Israel been sanctioned by the UN?
As of 2013, the State of Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Since the UNHRC’s creation in 2006, it has resolved almost as many resolutions condemning Israel alone than on issues for the rest of the world combined.
Written by Palestinians? Objective?
No not objective at all. I always look at the names of the reporters. Reuters has become more and more left wing anti Israeli in recent times. If things are really so dire in Gaza why are there not more calls for Hamas to surrender? If Hamas did this and handed over all the hostages the war would instantly be over.
Rubbish. This war has been going on since 1948, with many seasons of horror stories to relate. This did not start on 7 October, and will not end with the return of hostages.
That is a very simplistic view. This conflict goes back to the formation of Israel, which was done without the consent of the Palestinian Arab population living there at the time & who were the majority population. Both sides have committed atrocities on each other over the years , & each year more generations are bred into hatred & extremism. The US too has blood on their hands for not forcing Israel abide by the Oslo Accord.
Correct
Israel saw the 7th Oct as an excuse to murder the Palestinians completely & claim their land which they mostly stole with their evil Nazi-(like?) apartheid state. When will the USA & the Saudis say enough. Remember 7th Oct did not happen in a vacuum.
Agreed. Netanyahu is using the war to garner support and I wouldn’t be surprised if it backfires.
Taking issue with the source is short sighted. Take issue with the alleged facts or arguments presented if you can, and always try to read multiple sources. At this point I don’t assume that criticism of Israel is simply blind anti-Israeli sentiment since their actions in Gaza at the very least are clearly worthy of criticism.
And the isreali government has a history of lying.
Hamas has base in gaza hospital,a farcical attemp to prove a lie
Killing al jazeera reporter
Asking Palestinians to move to safe areas. Thereafter bombing the safe areas.
Taking issue with the source is short sighted. Take issue with the alleged facts or arguments presented if you can, and always try to read multiple sources. At this point I don’t assume that criticism of Israel is simply blind anti-Israeli sentiment since their actions in Gaza at the very least are clearly worthy of criticism.
Isn’t that what happens when you murder children in their thousands? Surely, whatever revenge they wanted to inflict they inflicted on day one. The rest has been a genocide and war crime.
I have just read Terry Crawford-Browne’s open letter to our foreign minister, Dr Naledi Pandor, and in it he suggests that to force immediate Israeli compliance with calls for a ceasefire, that Israel’s banks be threatened with removal from the SWIFT banking system. As South Africans, we remember how financial sanctions brought about the end of that apartheid state. Could sanctions bring about the end of apartheid again?
I do believe it would work in theory, however the US would never allow it.
Nothing Israel does wil please the jew-haters. Israel fight on. Do what must be done. For us, for the world.
One does not have to be a “Jew-hater” to see clearly that the IDF has gone too far. How do you justify the killing of tens of thousands of civilians and the destruction of the lives of hundreds of thousands of defenceless people. The scale of the Netanyahu led response to the Hamas attacks of October 7 is completely over the top and cannot be justified.
It is clear that your knowledge of the world comes from news bites from slanted media. I suggest broader reading might help – develop an informed opinion in world matters, and not espouse dimwit comments. Israel consists of many other religions, not only Jews. Israel fights for Israel, not you, me or the rest of the world. And, a novel bit of insight: there are Jews that disagree with Israeli politics, both inside and outside Israel. So help yourself and read some more about what happens inside Israel, its people and its politics. You may be surprised how fractious opinions are there, it most certainly is not an amorphous group of ‘jews’. Use a capital ‘J’ next time.
We love the Jews, but hate the neo cons.
“Fight on ” you mean continue killing children?
“For the world” 80% of the UN voted for a cease fire
Whats a neo con?
Don’t pull the anti-Semetic card (as a South African you should know better). And instead read up on the formation of Israel & how it was achieved, especially how Palestinan Arabs living there were affected.
The IDF doesn’t run around beheading, raping and kidnapping Palestinians.
When you choose violence (hamas), violence will choose you (hamas).
Where the violent minority rules, the silent majority suffers.
The Israelis want to stop this “forever war”. Now! Not later. Because later will be genocide.
As for the UN and their 80%. Stick it with the other 80% against ruZZia.
Mr Bester, the IDF does kill women and children, the Idf denies 2 million people basic necessities, water and food. The idf does ask people to move to safe zones in the south and thereafter bombs them. The idf disregards laws of war
“Where the violent minority rules, the silent majority suffers” …correct when the minority isreali government places 2 million people in a prison,denying them basic amenities,the silent are suffering.
The Israelis have been fighting this “forever war” since 47 years being an occupying force.
They are committing a “genocide” by any standard.
Ask yourself why the UN is not voting against Russia but against isreal
Mr Bester, history speaks for itself. you should get informed. Every single news outlet whether pro or against talks about the ‘Occupied Westbank’ because Israeli’s are and have been for years, forcefully invading Palestinian territory, stealing their farms and leaving them homeless. Would you not resist were it to happen to you?
US: Yada yada yada. And in the meantime they ship more munitions and money to Israel.
This is the point: “U.S. and Israel vote against measure (calling for a ceasefire in Gaza)”. All the fine words count for nothing.
Agreed, and Biden is looking at his low polls – he is in a tight spot. The ‘optics’ as the Americans always love to use, is not good, with the growing anti-war protests. Wars reported in the media are never that simplistic, and in all likelihood due to external political influences far from the battle zones. Having an opposing view to Israeli actions always seems to end up in the broadening definition of ‘antisemitism’ – people conflate Jews with Zionists and with Israel. And lest we forget Israeli citizens follow a variety of religions.
There is absolutely nothing Biden or the “Americans (the Senate/Congress)” will do.
The famous Ariel Sharon quote from On October 3, 2001, resulting from an argument between Sharon and his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Peres warned Sharon that refusing to heed to incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians, would endanger Israeli interests and “turn” the US against us. Sharon yelled at Peres: “… don’t worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America.” I’m sure he actually meant Zionists and not Jews. Also, note this cease-fire with the Palestinians was called for in 2001.
It is very sad to witness the suffering of children, women, elderly in Palestine. Palestine should be declared as an independent State. Currently, there is no water, electricity, fuel, medicine, and foodstuff. It is a barbaric world we are living in.
Disagree Israel needs to do what is necessary to protect its own country and the rest of the world needs to butt out.
Protecting one’s country is fighting your enemy, not killing 10,000 women and children
To begin with it is not their country, it was & is still stolen thru’ the barrel of the gun – American mass destruction devices. By the way should the world have ‘butt out’ of South African apartheid which incidentally was a fraction of Israeli Zionist Apartheid evil.
A timely reminder to those with selective amnesia. I wonder what their views will be should we wake up one morning and find the Russian fleet on our coast, having invaded while we were sleeping. And the west decided to withdrew support because they no longer needed South African resources, nor our strategic location (they started building military bases in the Middle East and on islands around the world too).
You feel that the killing of 16,000 Palestinian civilians is justified? How about Israel return the land in the West Bank, that they took from Palestinians without compensation? As a South African , you should understand the depth of emotion over land. Then maybe start reading up on Israel ……
Indeed, starting with the US that has been funding this war. And since we share this world, and Israel’s actions are threatening peace, all countries are entitled to an opinion and whatever action they deem fit. In most countries, allowing animals to starve in a locked enclosure is a crime. Right now this is happening to the Palestinians.
The only solution is the total wipeout of all of Gaza as the “civilians” were told to get out.
As the song goes:
“From the river, to the sea, herd the Gazan refugees”
genocide
/ˈdʒɛnəsʌɪd/
noun
the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
This reminds of an article I read in the Wall Street Journal last week in which the writer mused that maybe its time to remove or change the current meaning of ‘genocide’ . Purely because, according to him it was overused in all forms of situations… just very opportunistic to only mention this now while genocide in its true meaning is perpetrated. The intent of the article was clearly to change the narrative and allow Israel to continue. Shameful, now English is also under attack. Call it by any other name, its still mass murder on a grand scale.
And where are they supposed to go? Where should they live once they’ve moved out of their area? For a nation which has suffered the worst type of racism known to mankind, it blows my mind that the Israeli’s have no issue with imposing a violent, apartheid system on another people. And then are mystified when those people fight back.
Another reason for a ceasefire that may also be in Israeli interests . Read a article by Israeli infectious disease professor . He states diseases released by the dead bodies rotting in the rubble and in open areas may also affect Israeli public in the next few weeks . Caused by wind direction and the IDF troops and equipment moving between Gaza and Israel . The urgency to bury those bodies is in both parties long term interest .
Sad self confessed zionist, geo Joe, you cannot train a rottweiler to kill then try to stop him.
Sounds hypocritical when he is sending $100 million dollars of ammunition to isreal.
70 % of the USA public is against the governments support of the gaza genocide, but Joe, senate and Congress support bibi,who has 4% support amongst his own people !!!
Is geno Joe guilty of of war crimes also?
The answer is always yes. But the hypocrisy is that the US accuses some Russians with war crimes, when the US, Russia and Israel do not recognise the ICC yet seeks its help to arrest others. This is why they carry on doing what they do with no accountability…atrocities that surface years later after suppressing information.
Golda Meir quoted on the pacification and deportation of the Palestinians ” the old will die and the young will forget” .Well the majority of the world and Israeli’s forgot but the Palestinians remembered now Israeli actions are bringing their history to the world in colour on TV. Moshe Dayan to Haifa University students in 1969 ” Jewish villages were built in place of arab villages and i do not blame you because these geography books no longer exist ,the arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul , Gevat – in place of Jibta , Sarid – in place of Haneifs and Kefar Yeshoshua – in place of Tell Shaman . There is no one place in this country that did not have a former arab population”. Another Quote to soldiers at a memorial in 1956 ” What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred of us ,for 8 years they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza and before their eyes we turn into our homesteads the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived” . Most Israeli’s and their supporters cannot adjust to this history which they chose to forget .
The Hama terrorists are the children of the Palestinians from Gaza, to make out that they are some different group is nonsense. The Israeli war to eliminate Hamas is targeted, strategic, and necessary to obtain peace from those who have repeatedly sworn to want to kill them.
By “targeted” you mean only intended to kill Palestinians?
There is no Israeli war, this is standard IDF “mowing of the Gaza lawn”, just using much larger “lawnmowers” to eradicate as many Palestinians as they can. Anyone who thinks that this is a targeted, strategic attack is delusional. Why do the IDF keep highlighting that Arab countries don’t want Palestinians, why should Palestinians leave their land? The intent is to move whatever remains of Palestinians to the desert.
In Albert Einstein’s letter, dated January 21, 1946, to Henry Factor, his last statement reads: “…Zionists are taking such an intransigent position which can only impair our cause …”.
hose who say the land was promised, bear in mind, it was not promised to Zionists; Zionism is an ideology based on Atheism.
Now you last comment gives some context. Spent last month reading up on Judaism and Zionism and could not understand how they join. Also the first reference i could find for Zionism was not Jews but Christians in the UK in the 1820’s .
Up until the early 20th Century, there were still Christians who referred to Jews as “Christ Killers”. I’ve also read that it was foretold that Christians and Jews will remain enemies until they find common ground, and it appears that Zionism is a “common ground”…
Zionists will refer to themselves as Jews in order to get “protection” or “sympathy”. Have you seen the videos of how Jews and Jewish rabbis are being beaten and treated by the IDF for opposing the bombing of Gaza? Will “Jews” really treat Jews like that?
Check the quotes by Ilan Pappe “… most Zionists don’t believe that God exists …” and Howard Rosenthal: “Most Jews do not like to admit it, but our God is Lucifer … and we are his chosen people”. I don’t think that Howard was actually referring to Jews but to Zionists.
Next comes a quote from Hitler to prove your point
We as South Africans suffer financially and otherwise due to the indiscriminate, racist, stupid, communist aligned decisions made by our communist orientated ANC government…… equally, the people of Gaza unfortunately have to live with the results of the decisions made by the Gaza Hamas government to attack and kill Israeli civilians in an unprovoked attack, fully knowing what the Israeli response would be, and then go into hiding amongst civilians and medical facilities like cowards
You still believe the IDF Propaganda Narrative???.
Unprovoked? Thousands of Palestinians held in Zionist Jails without trail, a trend going on for decades?
The intent on Oct 7, was to take as many hostages as possible to trade for Palestinians held in Zionist Jails. The only tunnels found under Al Shifa hospital was bunkers that the Zionists themselves had made.
Please advise your sources regarding Hamas’s intent in taking hostages as well those regarding the Zionist bunkers
The Bunker:
1) 2014 article published in Tablet Magazine.
2) The Haaretz and other outlets have specifically mentioned the hospital’s Building No. 2, which it says was built as an add-on in the mid-1980s and contains a large cement basement initially intended for laundry and administrative tasks.
3) Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that decades ago Israeli contractors helped build some of the underground infrastructure beneath the hospital.
Hostages:
From a statement released by Hamas.
We left Gaza with the intent to take as many hostages as possible, back to Gaza to exchange with the thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons without trial, visitation rights, etc.
1) Confirmed number killed, 900.
2) Majority of the total killed were Israeli Soldiers.
3) Hamas shot around 100 settlers, armed with guns.
4) Hamas was armed with machine guns, and grenade launchers.
5) Hostages were taken, and no babies were beheaded or burnt, and no women raped.
6) The IDF responded with Troops, Tanks, and Apache Helicopter.
7) Most of the Kibbutzim deaths were the result of Tank shelling.
8) All the burnt bodies were the result of Tank shelling.
9) All the homes damaged or destroyed was the result of Tank shelling.
read Hamas’s – Goal in Gaza . Foreign Affairs .publication of US Council of Foreign Relations. Bunkers – Ex Israeli PM Barak’s comments on CNN .But not sure if those revealed by IDF are the same bunkers.
Fortunately, Israel have been able to deliver a resounding thumping to its enemy in this war. Despite public opinion, and without having to ask permission. It will continue to do so, until the mission is complete.