A security council vote was postponed until Friday to give UN missions time to consult their capitals
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The US has declared it is ready to support a UN security council resolution intended to boost the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza after a week of negotiations and substantial amendments, including the removal of a call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities”.
A vote on the resolution was postponed for a fourth day in a row until Friday, after negotiations late into the evening, but the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the US and Arab states had come up with an amended version Washington could support.
The vote is now delayed until Friday, it’s understood. The Reuters news agency says the vote was delayed after Russia (also a veto power in the UN security council) and some other council members complained during closed-door talks about the amendments made to appease the US, according to diplomats.
The US had also been wary of a reference in the draft resolution to a cessation of hostilities, according to diplomats. The US and Israel oppose a ceasefire, believing it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and free hostages taken by Hamas. The draft resolution now has blunted language to have the council call for “urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
In the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) latest assessment of the situation it says that “On 21 December, heavy Israeli bombardments from air, land, and sea, continued across most of the Gaza Strip. Intense ground operations and fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups continued, in most areas of Gaza, with the exception of Rafah. The firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups into Israel continued”
The World Food Programme says its latest food security analysis for Gaza, shows that the entire population of Gaza is in crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity.
UN undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths has said about a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification “This announcement about the risk of famine in Gaza is sobering but not surprising. We have been warning for weeks that, with such deprivation and destruction, each day that goes by will only bring more hunger, disease and despair to the people of Gaza.”
The Queen of Jordan, Rania Al Abdullah has written an opinion piece in the Washington Post about the war. In it she says: This has become an unequivocal humanitarian nightmare. With each passing day, the threshold of what is acceptable falls to new lows, setting a terrifying precedent for this and other wars to come.
Israeli forces invaded the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s ambulance center in Jabalia in northern Gaza on Thursday evening, according to the PRCS. The PRCS added that Israeli forces arrested the crews and paramedics and took them to an unknown location while children and women remain trapped inside the center.
US senator Bernie Sanders has called on the US to not provide “another $10bn to the rightwing extremist [Benjamin] Netanyahu government to continue their war against the Palestinian people.” In an address to the US senate, Sanders said: “The Netanyahu government is continuing its military approach which is both immoral and in violation of international law.”
Canada’s immigration minister has announced temporary visas for people in Gaza with Canadian relatives, the Associated Press reports. In an announcement on Thursday, the immigration minister, Marc Miller, said that despite the offer of temporary visas, Canada cannot guarantee safe passage out of Gaza.
Cyprus’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, said on Thursday that his government was awaiting a green light from Israel to send a prepared package of desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza. His comments follow two days of talks between Cypriot and Israeli officials fine-tuning an initiative first proposed by the island republic in November. Christodoulides said: “We are waiting for final approval from Israel. We are ready.”
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