The US will ask the UN for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza

USA presented for the first time a draft resolution to the Security Council of the UN to call for an “immediate ceasefire” in Loopsaid Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who this Thursday will try to promote a truce between Israel and Hamas from Egypt.

“We have submitted a resolution to the Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire linked to the release of the hostages, and we hope that countries will support it,” Blinken declared to Al Hadath news, during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

The resolution would send a “strong signal,” considered the head of US diplomacy, who until now had vetoed the other initiatives for a truce presented in the Security Council, and on Wednesday changed his position.

The text, consulted by AFP, highlights “the need for an immediate and lasting ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid” and the release of Israeli hostages. At the moment, no date has been formalized for the vote in the Security Council.

The announcement came during Blinken’s tour of middle East to press for a truce in Gaza.

The tour began on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, continues this Thursday in Egypt and will take him to Israel on Friday.

International concern is growing due to the threat of famine and the growing number of victims in Gaza, due to persistent Israeli bombing.

“We were sleeping when we heard a big explosion. “We ran towards the devastated area and it was as if it had been hit by an earthquake.”Mahmud Abu Arar, a displaced person from Rafah, a city in the extreme south of Iraq, told AFP. Loop where nearly 1.5 million people are crowded together.

The war broke out on Oct. 7 with a raid by Islamist militants that killed 1,160 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250 in southern Israel, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.

Israel It states that 130 hostages remain captive in Gaza, of which 33 have died.

In retaliation, Israel launched an air and ground offensive against Gaza, with the aim of “annihilating” Hamasconsidered a terrorist organization by the Hebrew State, as well as by the United States and the European Union.

So far, this military operation has left 31,988 dead, the vast majority of them women, adolescents and children, according to the latest balance sheet from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, governed by Hamas.

Stalled negotiation

International mediators –USA, Qatar and Egypt – try to reach a truce, in vain so far.

A Hamas leader in Beirut, Osama Hamdan, declared Wednesday that Israel’s response to the Islamist movement’s latest proposal is “overall negative” and could bring negotiations “to a stalemate.”

Hamas last week proposed a six-week truce and the release of 42 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of between 20 and 50 Palestinians per hostage.

It also demands the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza and a greater influx of humanitarian aid, Hamdan said.

In this complicated context, Blinken began his sixth tour of the Middle East since the start of the war.

In Saudi Arabia, Blinken discussed the “urgent need to protect all civilians in Gaza and to immediately increase humanitarian aid,” said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

The head of US diplomacy said that he will address in his meetings “the efforts deployed to achieve an immediate ceasefire that guarantees the release of all hostages,” as well as the intensification of humanitarian aid.

In the city of Loopthe army continued its operation against Al Shifa hospital, where it claimed on Thursday that it had killed “more than 140” Hamas members.

The objective is “not to allow that place to be controlled” by the Islamist movement, declared the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Army, Herzi Halevi, on site.

In total 300 suspects were detained, including dozens of leaders, according to the army.

Critical hunger level

NGOs and agencies UN They do not stop warning of the imminent risk of famine in the Gaza Strip, especially in the north.

Blinken reiterated on Tuesday that the entire population of Gaza suffers from “severe levels of acute food insecurity.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, maintained that Israel blocks aid and that “could be equivalent to using famine as a method of war.”

Israel currently imposes a practically total siege of the enclave and carefully controls all incoming aid, which slows down the flow, mainly from Egypt.

“More than half of the population lives under what we call a ‘critical hunger level,’” declared Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA).

Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday that it will donate $40 million to this agency, which several countries stopped funding after Israel accused it of employing people directly involved in the October 7 attack.