Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in a massive protest in central London on Saturday afternoon calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli war on Gaza.
The demonstration was led by Palestinians, Arabs, and Jewish organizations which rejected the Israeli genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip.
It comes less than a day after the UK abstained and the US used its veto in the vote on a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli war on Gaza.
Here are some highlights on what is going on in Gaza and the world
1- On the 64th day of its war, Israel targeted a declared safe zone in Rafah, killing over 10 people in their homes, while relentlessly bombarding Khan Younis with artillery and airstrikes. Global solidarity protests in support of Palestinians took place in various world capitals, just one day after the US vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council.
2- Susan, a 20-year-old mother from Gaza, was reunited with her twin baby girls in a hospital in Egypt on Thursday – almost two months after she last saw them.
The two baby girls were among 28 premature babies who were evacuated from Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, on 28 November, after Israel besieged, bombed then ransacked the place, sending it out of service.
On Saturday, in a video posted on the X account of the World Health Organization regional office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Susan looks with love at her girls as they are being fed and warmly taken care of by Egyptian medical staff.Sobbing, she said: This war has to end!”
More than 50,000 Palestinian women in Gaza are pregnant.
Many Palestinian mothers have delivered their babies to this world without anaesthesia only to be welcomed by the sounds of Israeli bombs.
3- The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Saturday that the death toll in Israel’s war on the strip had risen to at least 17,700, mostly women and children.
“The crimes and genocide against the people of Gaza are beyond any description… Ending Palestinian existence with American and European support is inhuman,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said, adding that 48,780 people had also been wounded in the war.
4- Security council veto
The resolution, which was submitted by the UAE, garnered the support of 13 members of the UNSC but failed to pass after the US used its veto power on the council to give more time to the Israeli military campaign on the strip.
The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bombing campaign on Gaza is one of the most intense in history, according to Al Jazeera.
The levels of destruction in the strip are comparable to the destruction suffered by German cities in World War II, added Borrell.
He called for measures to end the violence against the Palestinians, warning that this violence makes the two-state solution more difficult.
5- The Gaza City Municipality warned that 500,000 Palestinians who remain in the city in northern Gaza are facing a dire situation after all but three water wells operate on a very limited basis as fuel ran out.
Meanwhile, UNICEF repeated its call for an immediate ceasefire to save the children in Gaza from more deaths and injuries.
West Bank
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank on Saturday and another succumbed to his wounds from an Israeli raid the day before, health officials said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 25-year-old man died of his wounds Saturday after being shot during an arrest raid in the Faraa refugee camp on Friday, bringing the death toll there to seven.
Among those killed was a local commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Ahram Online could not verify this report independently.
Also Saturday, Israeli occupation forces killed a 25-year-old Palestinian near the city of Hebron. The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.
The deaths brought to 274 the number of Palestinians killed in the occupied territory since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza two months ago.
Aid for Gaza
A senior UN official told Reuters news agency that a new process for inspecting aid for Gaza at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing is being tested, but efforts to get permission for trucks to enter through the crossing and ramp up relief are still continuing.
Under the new system, trucks would come to the crossing with Israel, Gaza and Egypt for the first time from Jordan, before entering Gaza from Rafah, about 3km (1.86 miles) away.
But Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the WFP, said the trucks would need to be allowed to enter Gaza directly through Kerem Shalom to alleviate an increasingly desperate situation in the coastal strip.
Until now, limited quantities of aid have been delivered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which is ill-equipped to process large numbers of trucks. Trucks have been driving more than 40km (24.9 miles) south to Egypt’s border with Israel before returning to Rafah, leading to bottlenecks and delays.
Erdogan blasts US veto
Turkish President Recep Erdogan said that America’s veto against the ceasefire in Gaza “demonstrates once again that the world is bigger than the five permanent members of the Security Council.”
“The United Nations Security Council demand for ceasefire is rejected only by US veto. Is this justice?” he said, highlighting the necessity for reform the Security Council.
Erdogan also denounced the Israeli government, emphasizing that “the unlimited support it receives from Western nations allows it to commit brutal atrocities and massacres that bring shame to humanity.”
More calls for ceasefire
Climate activists rallied for a joint ‘climate justice’ and ‘ceasefire now’ march, demanding an end to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai.
Ahram.org
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