The United Nations General Assembly is expected to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to the Gaza war as Israel plans to speed up the entry of aid into the enclave by allowing trucks to be inspected at the Nitzana and Kerem Shalom Crossing.
“Trucks containing water, food, medical supplies, and shelter equipment will be screened at the Nitzana Crossing and the Kerem Shalom Crossing – and will be forwarded from there to international aid organizations in the Gaza Strip via the Rafah Crossing in Egypt,” the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said on Monday.
Israel closed Kerem Shalom which is the main commercial crossing into Gaza at the start of the war two months ago. Since then only humanitarian aid has entered the enclave, traveling there through Egypt’s Rafah crossing which is not equipped to handle the needed volume of goods.
“We would like to emphasize that no supplies will be entering the Gaza Strip from Israel and that all the humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip will continue to enter via the Rafah crossing in Egypt,” COGAT stated.
Israel facing international pressure
Despite intense international pressure, Israel moved forward with its military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza following the October 7 attack, in which the terror group killed over 1,200 people and seized some 250 hostages.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels that “the destruction of buildings in Gaza was more or less or even greater than the destruction suffered by German citizens during the Second World War” as he called for a ceasefire.
US opposed to ceasefire
United States National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One that the Biden administration opposed a ceasefire that would only benefit Hamas.
But, he said, the US supports additional humanitarian pauses such as the seven-day one Qatar had secured last week in which 105 hostages were freed. The US continues to work for another pause that would allow for more hostages to be freed, Kirby said.
There are “daily conversations” to advance such a pause, he said, amid reports that such a deal could come to fruition next week.
“We want to get those hostages out, we are still working with the Israelis to get humanitarian assistance in,” he said.
The US is also worried about the regional spillover from the Gaza war, Kirby said, as violence continued along Israel’s northern border. “We absolutely do not want to see this conflict spill over into Lebanon. We do not want to see a second front. We do not want to see it escalate and widen,” Kirby said.
In addition, Kirby said, the United States is concerned about reports Israel used US-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon.
“We’ve seen the reports. Certainly concerned about that. We’ll be asking questions to try to learn a little bit more.”
Kirby said white phosphorus has a “legitimate military utility” for illumination and producing smoke to conceal movements.
“Obviously any time that we provide items like white phosphorous to another military, it is with the full expectation that it will be used in keeping with those legitimate purposes … and in keeping with the law of armed conflict,” he said.
In Tel Aviv Defense Minister Yoav Gallant responded to a question about white phosphorus in Lebanon, said: “The IDF and the entire security establishment acts according to international law. That is how we have acted and how we will act.”
He also clarified that Israel had no intention of remaining in Gaza once the war was over, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that it must remain under Israeli security control.
In a closed-door meeting, Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that a civilian administration will operate in Gaza and the Gulf states, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, will rehabilitate the enclave, according to a report on KAN News.
He pushed back at the Biden administration’s plan to place the Palestinian Authority in Gaza after the war.
“The difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is that Hamas wants to destroy us here and now, and the PA wants to do it in stages,” he said.
In Washington State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller expressed concern about the videos which have been circulated about Hamas terrorists stripped to their underwear and shorts when arrested by the IDF. He also spoke about the importance of Israel complying with humanitarian law, particularly since it receives military assistance from the US.
Miller also told reporters on Monday that US Special Envoy David Satterfield held meetings over the weekend with Israelis asking them to do more on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the Hamas-run health ministry said 18,205 people had now been killed and 49,645 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza in just over two months of warfare. Israel has said that some 7,000 of those fatalities were Hamas fighters.
UN Security Council envoys spoke of unimaginable suffering and urged an end to the war in the Gaza Strip on Monday as they made an unusual visit to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing.
China’s representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, asked by reporters if he had a message to nations that opposed a ceasefire in Gaza, said simply: “Enough is enough.”
A majority of UN member states support an immediate and lasting ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, as dire conditions worsen for its 2.3 million residents.
The United States, which backs Israel, last week vetoed a proposed Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire as Israeli tanks and troops press an invasion that has displaced most of Gaza’s population.
A dozen Security Council envoys attended the trip organized by the United Arab Emirates to visit Rafah, just days after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that thousands of people in the besieged Palestinian enclave were “simply starving.”
After flying to the town of Al-Arish they were briefed by UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA on conditions in Gaza before heading towards Rafah 30 miles (48 km) away.
“The reality is even worse than what words can speak,” Ecuador’s UN representative, Jose De La Gasca, told reporters after the UNRWA briefing.
US and France representatives did not participate in the trip.
UAE permanent representative to the UN Lana Nusseibeh said the envoys were told Gazans were dying from malnutrition, a collapsing medical system and a lack of water and food, in addition to the actual conflict in itself.
The vast majority of the Palestinian enclave’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini described an “implosion of civil order” where Gazans who have not eaten for days looted aid distribution centers and stopped trucks on roads as they tried to secure supplies for their families.
“There is not enough assistance,” Lazzarini said. “Hunger is prevailing in Gaza… Most of the people are just sleeping on the concrete.”
Russian envoy Vasily Nebenzia described conditions in Gaza as “catastrophic” and said that those against a ceasefire should “face the reality and afford dignity to the Palestinians.”
Nebenzia rejected accusations it was hypocritical to condemn Israel when Moscow had invaded Ukraine.
Limited humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries have crossed into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, but aid officials say it comes nowhere near to satisfying the most basic needs of Gazans.
As the UN envoys traveled towards the Rafah border, hundreds of aid trucks were parked along the road leading to the crossing, waiting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
UAE’s Nusseibeh said Abu Dhabi was coordinating with relevant authorities so that drinkable water could be pumped into Gaza from an Emirati-funded desalination plant in Egypt.
While Israel has turned off the water to Gaza, it is also unclear if Gaza’s infrastructure is capable of receiving the desalinated water after weeks of heavy Israeli bombardment.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 100 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Egypt on Sunday, the same number as the previous day.
It noted that was “well below” the daily average of 500 truckloads, including fuel, that entered every working day prior to Oct. 7.
The 15-member Security Council is negotiating a UAE-drafted resolution that demands warring parties “allow the use of all land, sea and air routes to and throughout” Gaza for aid.
It would also establish a UN-run aid monitoring mechanism in Gaza Strip. It was not clear when the draft resolution could be put to a vote.
Reuters and Maariv contributed to this report.
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