No Let-up in Gaza War Despite UN Ceasefire Resolution

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield votes to abstain on the Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire - AFP
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield votes to abstain on the Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire - AFP
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No Let-up in Gaza War Despite UN Ceasefire Resolution

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield votes to abstain on the Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire - AFP
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield votes to abstain on the Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire - AFP

Israeli troops battled Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, with no sign of a let-up in the war despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an "immediate ceasefire".

The resolution was adopted Monday after Israel's closest ally the United States abstained.

It demands an "immediate ceasefire" for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan, leading to a "lasting" truce.

It also demands that Hamas and other militants free hostages they took during the unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel, though it does not directly link the release to a truce.

After the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres led calls for the resolution to be implemented.

"Failure would be unforgivable," he wrote on social media platform X.

Israel reacted furiously to the US abstention, as it allowed the resolution to go through with all the other 14 Security Council members voting yes.

The resolution is the first since the Gaza war erupted to demand an immediate halt in the fighting.

Washington insisted that its abstention, which followed numerous vetoes, did not mark a shift in policy, although it has taken an increasingly tougher line with Israel in recent weeks.

The war began with Hamas's October 7 attacks, which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes around 130 are still held in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead.
Vowing to destroy Hamas and free the captives, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of the coastal territory.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Monday put the Palestinian death toll at 32,333, most of them women and children.

Seventy people were killed early Tuesday, according to the ministry, including 13 in Israeli air strikes around the south Gazan city of Rafah, a key flashpoint in the war.

Hamas welcomed the Security Council resolution and reaffirmed its readiness to negotiate the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
In a statement, the militant group accused Israel of thwarting the latest round of talks hosted by mediator Qatar.

Hamas said Prime Minister Benjamin and his cabinet were "entirely responsible for the failure of negotiation efforts and for preventing an agreement from being reached up until now".

Israel has consistently defended its campaign despite mounting international criticism of its conduct.

Enraged by the United States' abstention, it cancelled the visit of a delegation to Washington.

It said that the abstention "hurts" both its war effort and attempts to release hostages, while Netanyahu's office described it as "a clear retreat from the consistent position of the US".

According to the Israeli army, anti-rocket sirens sounded in Israeli areas around the Gaza Strip.

While Rafah, like other areas around the Gaza Strip, has come under frequent Israeli strikes, it is the only part of the territory where Israel has not sent in ground troops.

It borders Egypt, and 1.5 million Palestinians fleeing the rest of the devastated territory have sought refuge there.

Netanyahu's determination to launch a ground operation in Rafah, the city on Gaza's southern border where most of the territory's population is sheltering, has become a key point of contention between Israel and the United States.

In Rafah, Palestinians welcomed the UN vote and called for the United States to use its influence on Israel to secure a ceasefire.

Bilal Awad, 63, said Washington must "stand against an attack on Rafah, and support the return of the displaced to their cities".

Ihab al-Assar, 60, expressed hope that "Israel will comply" with the Security Council.
Israel has labelled its operations "precise operational activities" and said it has taken care to avoid harm to civilians, but aid agencies have voiced alarm about non-combatants caught up in the fighting.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said Monday it was battling militants around two hospitals and reported killing about 20 fighters around Al-Amal over the previous day in close-quarters combat and air strikes.

Palestinians living near Al-Shifa, the territory's main hospital, have reported corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.

Israel's military said it had detained about 500 militants "affiliated with" Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group, during its operation at Al-Shifa.
The fighting came as an independent UN-appointed expert, Francesca Albanese, said there were "reasonable grounds to believe" Israel's actions in Gaza had met the threshold for "acts of genocide".

Israel rejected Albanese's report, due to be presented to the UN's Human Rights Council on Tuesday, as an "obscene inversion of reality".



Israel Threatens to Step up Gaza Strikes

Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)
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Israel Threatens to Step up Gaza Strikes

Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)

Israel warned Wednesday that it will intensify its strikes in Gaza if Hamas keeps up its rocket fire, as Palestinian rescuers reported dozens of deaths from Israeli strikes on the first day of the New Year.

Over the past week, Palestinian fighters have repeatedly fired rockets at Israel, particularly from northern Gaza, where the Israeli military is conducting a major offensive.

The rockets have caused little damage and have been fired in far smaller numbers than in the early stages of the war, but they have been a political blow for the Israeli government after nearly 15 months of fighting.

"I want to send a clear message from here to the heads of the terrorists in Gaza: If Hamas does not soon allow the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza... and continues firing at Israeli communities, it will face blows of an intensity not seen in Gaza for a long time," Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

His warning came after a visit to the Israeli town of Netivot, which was recently targeted by rocket fire from nearby Gaza.

Palestinian fighters are still holding 96 hostages seized during their October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and successive rounds of negotiations for their release and a ceasefire have all failed.

Israeli strikes continued across Gaza on Wednesday.

"The world welcomed the New Year with celebrations and festivities, while we witnessed 2025 begin with the first Israeli massacre in the town of Jabalia just after midnight," Gaza's civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

"Fifteen people were martyred and more than 20 were injured" in the strike on a house where displaced people were living, he said.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reported strike.

Since October 6, the military has been conducting a major land and air offensive in northern Gaza, particularly targeting Jabalia and its adjacent refugee camp.

The military says the operation is aimed at preventing Hamas fighters from regrouping in the area.

But on Monday UN human rights experts said the "siege" appears to be part of an effort "to permanently displace the local population as a precursor to Gaza's annexation".

Bassal said those living in the house were members of the Badra, Abu Warda and Taroush families who had sought refuge there.

Nearly all of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once since the war began on October 7 last year.

"The house has turned into a pile of debris," said Jibri Abu Warda, a relative of the victims, adding that the strike hit at around 1:00 am (2300 GMT Tuesday).

"It was a massacre, with body parts of children and women scattered everywhere. They were sleeping when the house was bombed," Abu Warda said.

"No one knows why they targeted the house. They were all civilians."

- Fear of cold -

Women wept over shrouded bodies in the morgue of the Al-Mamadani Hospital, some of them those of children.

"We don't want aid, we want the war to stop. Enough with the bloodshed! Enough!" said Khalil Abu Warda, another relative.

The Israeli assault, which began on October 6 in Jabalia, has since expanded across the north of the territory.

On Friday, the military raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, emptying it of its last staff and patients.

The army said it had killed more than 20 suspected combatants and detained more than 240, including the hospital's director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, it described as a suspected Hamas fighter.

"Around me there's nothing but rubble and destruction. People don't know what to do, don't know where to go. And they don't know how to survive," said Jonathan Whittall, a UN aid official in a video released after he visited the Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza.

The Israeli military has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as command centers, an allegation the group denies.

A report published Tuesday by the UN Human Rights Office said "insufficient information" has been made available to substantiate "vague" Israeli accusations of military use of hospitals.

Two further Israeli strikes in Gaza on Wednesday killed another 10 people, rescuers said.

The bombardment piled further misery on displaced Gazans already struggling to keep warm amid wintry conditions.

"For three days, we haven't slept out of fear that our children would fall sick because of the winter, as well as fear of missiles falling on us," said one displaced woman, Samah Darabieh.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 last year, resulting in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,553 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.