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UN Security Council Demands Immediate Gaza Ceasefire amid Israeli Airstrikes

A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment on a building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 24, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment on a building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 24, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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UN Security Council Demands Immediate Gaza Ceasefire amid Israeli Airstrikes

A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment on a building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 24, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment on a building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 24, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

The United Nations Security Council demanded an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas on Monday as Israeli forces carried out new airstrikes in Gaza and laid siege to two hospitals.

After vetoing three earlier draft council resolutions on the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel's main ally, the United States, abstained in the vote following global pressure for a ceasefire to ease fears of famine after nearly six months of war.

Hamas welcomed the resolution, which also demanded the unconditional release of all hostages seized by the group in its deadly Oct. 7 raid on southern Israel.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel could not stop its war on Hamas while there were still hostages in Gaza.

"We will operate against Hamas everywhere - including in places where we have not yet been," his ministry quoted him as saying ahead of talks in the US. "We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose relationship with Washington has been strained by the ferocity of the offensive, said the US failure to veto the proposal was a "clear retreat" from its previous position.

He said he would not now follow through on plans to send a delegation to Washington to discuss a planned Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The White House said Netanyahu's decision was "disappointing".

The other 14 council members voted for the resolution demanding a ceasefire for the rest of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks.

"The Palestinian people have suffered greatly. This bloodbath has continued for far too long. It is our obligation to put an end to this bloodbath, before it is too late," Algeria's UN Ambassador Amar Bendjama told the Security Council after the vote.

There has been one truce to date, lasting a week at the end of November.

At least 32,333 Palestinians have been killed and 74,694 injured in Israel's offensive, including 107 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.

Israel said 1,200 people were killed and 253 abducted in the Hamas-led raid on Oct. 7.

Airstrikes and sieges

The Security Council resolution was approved as Israel continued to besiege two Gaza hospitals where it says Hamas cells are hiding and following a new wave of Israeli airstrikes.

Rafah, the last refuge for about half of Gaza's 2.3 million population following the arrival of many people displaced by fighting elsewhere, came under heavy fire in the latest Israeli attacks, witnesses said.

Palestinian medics said 30 people had been killed in the previous 24 hours in Rafah, where Israel is planning a ground assault to eliminate what it says are militant cells there.

"The past 24 hours were one of the worst days since we moved into Rafah," said Abu Khaled, a father of seven, who declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals.

Gaza medics said an Israeli airstrike had killed 18 Palestinians in one house in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, and the victims were buried on Monday.

Israeli forces were also besieging Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis on Monday, Palestinian witnesses said, a week after entering Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the main hospital in the Strip.

Israel says hospitals in Gaza are used by Hamas as bases. Hamas and medical staff deny this.

The Israeli military said it had detained 500 people affiliated with Hamas and the allied "Islamic Jihad" and located weapons in the Al Shifa area. Israeli forces also said 20 militants had been "eliminated" in fighting and airstrikes around Al Amal Hospital over the previous 24 hours.

Reuters has been unable to access Gaza's contested hospital areas and verify accounts by either side.

Ceasefire efforts

US-backed mediation by Qatar and Egypt has so far failed to secure agreement on a ceasefire and prisoner-hostage swap between Israel and Hamas.

As these efforts have stalled, international concern has mounted about the lack of aid reaching civilians in Gaza.

Concerns grew again on Monday after the Israeli government said it would stop working in Gaza with the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which it said was perpetuating conflict.

"UNRWA are part of the problem, and we will now stop working with them. We are actively phasing out the use of UNRWA because they perpetuate the conflict rather than try and alleviate the conflict," spokesperson David Mencer told reporters.

He made his comments after UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had informed the UN that it will no longer approve UNRWA food convoys to the north of Gaza.

Expressing his alarm about the humanitarian situation, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told reporters while visiting Jordan: "It is absolutely essential to have a massive supply of humanitarian aid now."

Israel denies blocking aid to Gaza, and says delivery of aid once inside the territory is the responsibility of the UN and humanitarian agencies. Israel has also accused Hamas of stealing aid, a charge the group denies.

Aid organizations say security checks and the difficulty of moving through a war zone have hindered their operations in Gaza. 

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Arab World

Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
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Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited heavily damaged towns near the Israeli border on Saturday, pledging reconstruction.

It was his first trip to the southern border area since the army said it finished disarming Hezbollah there, in January.

Swathes of south Lebanon's border areas remain in ruins and largely deserted more than a year after a US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire sought to end hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Lebanon's government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said it had completed the first phase of its plan to do so, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about 30 kilometers (20 miles) further south.

Visiting Tayr Harfa, around three kilometers from the border, and nearby Yarine, Salam said frontier towns and villages had suffered "a true catastrophe".

He vowed authorities would begin key projects including restoring roads, communications networks and water in the two towns.

Locals gathered on the rubble of buildings to greet Salam and the delegation of accompanying officials in nearby Dhayra, some waving Lebanese flags.

In a meeting in Bint Jbeil, further east, with officials including lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, Salam said authorities would "rehabilitate 32 kilometers of roads, reconnect the severed communications network, repair water infrastructure" and power lines in the district.

Last year, the World Bank announced it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction, after estimating that it would cost around $11 billion in total.

Salam said funds including from the World Bank would be used for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.

The second phase of the government's disarmament plan for Hezbollah concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around 40 kilometers south of Beirut.

Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticized the army's progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.

Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it usually says are Hezbollah targets and maintains troops in five south Lebanon areas.

Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction in the heavily damaged south with repeated strikes on bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses.

Visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Friday said the reform of Lebanon's banking system needed to precede international funding for reconstruction efforts.

The French diplomat met Lebanon's army chief Rodolphe Haykal on Saturday, the military said.

Arab World

Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Iraq has so far received 2,225 ISIS group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.

They are among up to 7,000 ISIS detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at "ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities".

Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF's role in confronting ISIS had come to an end.

Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister's office, told AFP on Saturday that "Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition", which Washington has led since 2014 to fight IS.

He said they are being held in "strict, regular detention centers".

A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the "continued transfer of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition".

On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.

- Iraq calls for repatriation -

ISIS seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.

Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the extremists.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offences.

Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.

On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military's operation.

In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said "the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist ISIS organization before the competent Iraqi courts".

Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.

Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.

Maan noted that "the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed".

Arab World

Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
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Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)

A drone attack by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan Saturday, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said.

The attack by the Rapid Support Forces occurred close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan province, said the Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the country’s ongoing war.

The vehicle transported displaced people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area of North Kordofan, the doctors’ group said in a statement. Among the dead children were two infants, the group said.

The doctors’ group urged the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.”

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war against the Sudanese military for control of the country for about three years.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to UN figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

It created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with over 14 million people forced to flee their homes. It fueled disease outbreaks and pushed parts of the country into famine.