Gaza aid inspection checkpoints to open – DW – 12/12/2023

The United Nations General Assembly is set to vote vote on a non-binding resolution to demand an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. Calls for a cease-fire have grown ever louder as the situation drags on, but the US — a staunch Israeli ally — vetoed a binding UN Security Council resolution on one last week.

Tuesday’s draft resolution is likely to be similar in language to the one blocked by Washington.

The October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, classified by multiple countries as a terrorist organization, killed over 1,200 individuals, many of them civilians.

The ensuing Israeli military retaliation has killed more than 18,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Israel has said that just over 100 of its soldiers have been killed since it launched its ground offensive into Gaza.

The European Union’s top foreign policy chief told reporters on Monday, after meeting with the bloc’s foreign ministers, that he will present a proposal to impose sanctions on Israelis living in illegal settlements in the West Bank who have increased their violent attacks against Palestinians in the last two months.

He said the ministers were “alarmed by the violence in the West Bank by extremist settlers.”

“And we are also alarmed by the fact that the Israeli government has approved the construction of another 1,700 housing units in east Jerusalem to expand the settlements, which is what we consider illegal under international law,” he added. “We condemn this decision.”

Borrell also lamented the suffering of civilians in Gaza.

“The human suffering constitutes an unprecedented challenge to the international community,” Borrell said.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters on Monday said his country has no intention of remaining in Gaza as an occupying force.

Gallant said the Israeli government was open to discussions as to who might control the territory after Israel completes its current military operations against Hamas, which currently controls the thin strip of land.

The defense minister suggested Israel was prepared to accept any legitimate group controlling the territory as long as it was not hostile towards Israel.

Israel has announced that it will open its Nitzana and Kerem Shalom crossings on Tuesday to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat) says the move will facilitate aid inspections and double aid delivery into Gaza.

The Nitzana and Kerem Shalom crossings will be used as security screening points from which trucks will be forwarded to Rafah, Egypt, the only crossing into Gaza that has remained open for much of the war.

Aid organizations have struggled to provide assistance to civilians in Gaza caught up in the fighting.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

The Palestinian enclave has been under attack by Israeli armed forces since the militant, Islamist group Hamas, which runs Gaza, launched terror attacks on Israel on October 7.

js/rt (AP, Reuters, AFP)