THE OVERWHELMING United Nations vote for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday night was welcomed by the Hamas Movement and the Palestine Liberation Organisation yesterday.
In the vote, 153 member states voted in favour of the ceasefire resolution, 10 countries opposed it and 23 abstained.
Izzat Al-Rishq, member of the Hamas political bureau, called on the international community to continue its pressures on the Israeli occupation ‘to adhere to the resolution and to stop its aggression, genocide, and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians’.
He added: ‘The United Nations General Assembly’s vote for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire reflects the will of the majority of the international community to stop the Zionist aggression and genocide war against Gaza.’
Hussein al-Sheikh, Secretary-General of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s executive committee, has said: ‘Israel is isolated internationally over its war on Gaza.’
However, Israel’s foreign minister Eli Cohen insisted that the Zionist regime will continue its war on Palestine regardless of the United Nations, saying: ‘Israel will continue the war against Hamas with or without international support.
‘A ceasefire at the current stage is a gift to the terrorist organisation Hamas and will allow it to return and threaten the residents of Israel.’
Cohen also called on the international community to act ‘effectively and aggressively’ against Yemen, which has launched a series of new attacks against Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea.
But Israeli rights groups have written a letter to US President Biden, urging him to pull the plug on the Netanyahu government to avert an ‘extreme humanitarian crisis’ in the Gaza Strip.
‘Israel’s policy has driven the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to the point of catastrophe – not only as an inevitable outcome of war,’ said the letter, signed by more than a dozen organisations including B’Tselem.
The letter said: ‘You have the power to influence our government to change its policy and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, in accordance with Israel’s legal obligations and the needs of the population,’ adding that allowing humanitarian aid into the enclave was ‘not a gesture of goodwill on Israel’s part, but one of its obligations’.
The Israeli army says 10 of its soldiers, including a colonel who commanded a forward base for the Golani infantry brigade, were killed in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
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