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UN Security Council to Consider Urging Gaza Ceasefire

An empty UN Security Council chamber is seen in January 2018. Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
An empty UN Security Council chamber is seen in January 2018. Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
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UN Security Council to Consider Urging Gaza Ceasefire

An empty UN Security Council chamber is seen in January 2018. Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
An empty UN Security Council chamber is seen in January 2018. Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

The UN Security Council meets on Gaza Friday under acute pressure from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and will vote on urging an immediate ceasefire after weeks of ruinous war.
Even though the civilian death toll in the Palestinian territory is mounting and living conditions are described as catastrophic amid Israel's bombardment, the outcome of the session is up in the air, said AFP.
In a letter to the council on Wednesday, Guterres took the extraordinary step of invoking the UN charter's Article 99, which states that the secretary-general may bring to the attention of the council "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security."
No one in his job had done this in decades.
Guterres wrote: "Amid constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces, and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible."
He called for a "humanitarian ceasefire" to prevent "a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians" and the entire Middle East.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric expressed hope that the council will heed Guterres' urgent appeal.
Dujarric said that since Wednesday the UN chief has spoken with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and their counterparts from several other countries.
'Catastrophic'
Israel has been pressing for the destruction of Hamas over the October 7 attack, when militants broke through Gaza's border, killing around 1,200 people and seizing hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.
The bloodiest ever war between Israel and Hamas is now in its third month, with the death toll in Gaza soaring above 17,000, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel's relentless bombardment and shelling has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
Israel is severely restricting the entry of food, water, fuel and medicine, and 1.8 million people (80 percent of Gaza's population) have been forced to leave home to escape Israeli attacks.
After Guterres sent his urgent letter, the United Arab Emirates prepared a draft resolution that will be put to a vote on Friday, said the delegation from Ecuador, which chairs the council this month and thus decides on scheduling issues.
The latest version of this document seen Thursday by AFP calls the humanitarian situation in Gaza "catastrophic" and "demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire."
The short text also calls for protection of civilians, the immediate and unconditional release of all the hostages Hamas is still holding, and humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip.
But the outcome of a vote is not clear -- four earlier drafts presented since the war broke out were rejected by the Security Council.
The council finally managed to speak out on the war in mid-November as it approved a resolution calling for "humanitarian pauses and corridors" in Gaza -- not a ceasefire.
The United States, Israel's most powerful ally, which vetoed one of the earlier draft resolutions and rejects the idea of a ceasefire, has said a new resolution from the council at this stage would not be "useful."
"Our position hasn't changed," said the deputy US ambassador, Robert Wood.
"We again think that the best thing that we can do, all of us, for the situation on the ground, is to let the quiet behind-the-scene diplomacy that is going continue," Wood said.
Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said "the US and all other members of the UN Security Council have a clear obligation under international law to prevent atrocities."
"There can be no justification for continuing to block meaningful action by the UN Security Council to stop massive civilian bloodshed, the complete collapse of the humanitarian system, and even worse horrors resulting from the breakdown of public order and massive displacement," she added.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said "we sincerely hope that the Security Council will adopt that resolution and will listen to brave, courageous, principled position of the secretary-general."
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Wednesday said Guterres' tenure was "a danger to world peace" after he invoked Article 99.

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Arab World

Israel Strikes Apartment Building in Central Beirut

Emergency services inspect the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment at a building in the Aisha Bakkar neighborhood, Beirut, Lebanon, 11 March 2026. (EPA)
Emergency services inspect the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment at a building in the Aisha Bakkar neighborhood, Beirut, Lebanon, 11 March 2026. (EPA)
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Israel Strikes Apartment Building in Central Beirut

Emergency services inspect the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment at a building in the Aisha Bakkar neighborhood, Beirut, Lebanon, 11 March 2026. (EPA)
Emergency services inspect the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment at a building in the Aisha Bakkar neighborhood, Beirut, Lebanon, 11 March 2026. (EPA)

An Israeli strike hit an apartment in central Beirut on Wednesday, state media reported, the second targeting of the heart of the Lebanese capital since the latest war with Iran-backed group Hezbollah broke out. 

Israeli media said the strike targeted an office used by the Jamaa Islamiya group that has ties with Hezbollah. They said four people were killed and four others wounded. 

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes. 

Israel, which kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire, has since launched attacks across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas. 

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said that "the enemy targeted an apartment in the Aisha Bakkar area" in central Beirut, a densely populated neighborhood close to one of the city's biggest shopping malls. 

AFPTV's live broadcast showed the sound of an airstrike followed by a fireball erupting in an apartment within a multi-story residential building in Beirut. 

An AFP correspondent saw destroyed walls in a building's seventh and eighth floors with damaged cars nearby and security forces present at the scene. 

Last week the Israeli army targeted a hotel in central Beirut, with Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations saying it killed four of its diplomats. 

- Southern suburbs - 

Earlier on Wednesday, the NNA reported an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway. 

The Israeli military had said in a statement it "has begun strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure" in the area. 

It reiterated on Tuesday its call for residents to evacuate the southern suburbs before launching strikes. 

Hezbollah said in separate statements on Tuesday that its fighters had attacked Israeli troops near the southern border towns of Khiam and Odaisseh, and launched rockets at Israel including at a "missile defense site" south of Haifa. 

It later said it was engaging an Israeli force near the border town of Aitaroun "with light and medium weapons". 

Lebanese authorities said Tuesday that 759,300 people had been registered as displaced, with 122,600 staying in shelters. 

The health ministry on Wednesday said that "successive raids launched by the Israeli enemy" on the southern town of Qana, Tyre district, killed five people and wounded five others. 

In Hennawiyeh, Tyre district, the ministry said the night prior that an Israeli strike wounded two people, and a follow-up attack killed them, along with a rescuer who came to the scene. 

A strike on Zalaya in the southeast killed one, per the ministry. 

Arab World

Sudan Urges US to Designate RSF a Terrorist Group

RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo speaks during a press conference at RSF headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan February 19, 2023. (Reuters)
RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo speaks during a press conference at RSF headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan February 19, 2023. (Reuters)
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Sudan Urges US to Designate RSF a Terrorist Group

RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo speaks during a press conference at RSF headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan February 19, 2023. (Reuters)
RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo speaks during a press conference at RSF headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan February 19, 2023. (Reuters)

Sudan's foreign ministry said Tuesday that the United States should designate the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces a "terrorist organization", a day after Washington slapped the same designation on the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The US designation for the Brotherhood, which will come into effect next week, accused the Islamist group of receiving support from Iran.

Noting that decision, while stopping short of criticizing it, Sudan's foreign ministry said "all groups that violate international humanitarian law and commit terrorism, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Sudan should be designated as terrorist groups".

The US, it added, should therefore "designate the RSF militia as a terrorist group, given its proven crimes and documented violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and terrorism".

Since 2023, the RSF -- under paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo -- has been at war with the regular army, under Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Burhan has a complex relationship with Islamists, relying on them for political support and fighters, but facing pressure from the US and his allies to distance himself from them.

He has denied having Brotherhood members in his government.

The RSF has been widely accused of mass atrocities, and last month was found by a UN inquiry to have committed "acts of genocide" in Darfur.

Last year, the US issued a similar genocide determination.

The RSF has repeatedly characterized the war as a fight against Sudan's Islamists and the remnants of the ruling system of Islamist-military president Omar al-Bashir, whom Daglo and Burhan helped oust in 2019.

Arab World

Israeli Strikes Hit Near Beirut as Envoy Says Disarming Hezbollah Could End War

Smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 March 2026. (EPA)
Smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 March 2026. (EPA)
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Israeli Strikes Hit Near Beirut as Envoy Says Disarming Hezbollah Could End War

Smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 March 2026. (EPA)
Smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 March 2026. (EPA)

Israel's military pounded the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs with air strikes on Tuesday and its troops pushed deeper into the country's south, as an Israeli envoy said the key to ending the war was disarming Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Lebanon was pulled deep into the war in the Middle East last week, when Iran-backed Hezbollah opened fire on Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader.

Israel has since launched air strikes across Lebanon's south, east and Beirut's suburbs, killing nearly 500 people including more than 80 children, according to Lebanon's health ministry.

Strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday afternoon sent thick columns of smoke over the ‌city. Two hours ‌before they began, an Israeli military spokesperson ordered residents to leave ‌immediately, ⁠specifying three new ⁠districts that should be evacuated.

A member of the municipal council for the area told Reuters families there were fleeing, adding to the nearly 700,000 that Lebanese authorities say have already been displaced by the war.

Lebanon's Minister of Social Affairs Haneen Sayed said on Tuesday that the state was bracing itself for higher displacement figures than in 2024, when the last war between Israel and Hezbollah pushed more than a million people out of their homes.

"So we expect that ⁠the needs, the numbers of displacement, will be higher than in ‌2024. Now on the other side in terms ‌of resources, there's far less resources this year given the global situation, the regional war that's ‌happening," she said.

DISARMING HEZBOLLAH COULD END WAR, ISRAELI ENVOY SAYS

Sayed spoke to Reuters ‌at Beirut's airport, where the European Union was delivering 45 tons of emergency supplies including medical kits and blankets.

"Our traditional partners and friends in the Gulf are of course under stress themselves. So we're appealing to the international community to be with us at this moment to help stabilize the ‌situation in terms of humanitarian needs," Sayed said.

Israeli troops made advances on Tuesday in additional towns in southeastern Lebanon, including with ⁠armored columns, Lebanese security ⁠sources told Reuters.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday had signaled his openness to enter direct negotiations with Israel to end the war.

But Israel's ambassador to France Joshua Zarka said on Tuesday that words were not enough.

"At this stage, I’m not aware of any decision to enter negotiations to end this war," Zarka said.

"What would end it is the disarmament of Hezbollah — and that is a choice for the Lebanese government," he said.

Zarka said Lebanon's government was "making very good statements, but to these comments they need to add actions."

Lebanon's government last year vowed to establish a state monopoly on arms and confiscated part of Hezbollah's arsenal in the country's south, without objections from the group.

But Hezbollah has refused to disarm in full, and Lebanese authorities were fearful that taking its arms by force could ignite a civil conflict.