“IMMEDIATE, DURABLE CEASEFIRE”
The United States will submit its draft resolution to the UN Security Council on Friday, a spokesman for the US representative to the world body said.
The US resolution “will unequivocally support ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at securing an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal … we will be bringing this Resolution for a vote on Friday morning,” Nate Evans, spokesman for US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said in a statement.
The United Kingdom and Australia, both allies of Israel and the United States, issued a statement after talks on Friday between their defence and foreign ministers that stressed the “urgency of an immediate cessation of fighting in Gaza to allow aid to flow and hostages to be released”.
After blocking an Algerian draft resolution calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza at the end of February, US officials have been negotiating an alternative text focusing on support for a six-week truce in exchange for the release of hostages.
However, Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters his country was “not satisfied with anything which doesn’t call for an immediate ceasefire”, raising the question of whether Security Council permanent member Moscow might veto the vote.
Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza has continued despite renewed diplomatic efforts, with the death toll in Gaza close to 32,000, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Israel’s military said it had killed more than 140 Hamas fighters and arrested more than 350 since the start of its operation in and around Al-Shifa hospital on Monday.
It said militants were hiding out at the vast hospital complex and civilians had not been harmed. Hamas said the attack on an area crowded with patients and people seeking refuge was a crime.
Source: CNA
