Region

THE HAGUE — The United States told the UN's top court on Wednesday that Israel should not be legally forced to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory without security guarantees.

The International Court of Justice is holding a week of hearings after a request from the United Nations, with an unprecedented 52 countries giving their views on Israel's occupation.

Most speakers have demanded that Israel end its occupation, which came after June War of 1967, but Washington came to its ally's defence at the court.

"The court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory," said Richard Visek, legal adviser at the US State Department.

"Any movement towards Israel withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza requires consideration of Israel's very real security needs," he argued.

"We were all reminded of those security needs on October 7," he said, referring to the Hamas attacks that sparked the current conflict.

The UN has asked the ICJ to hand down an "advisory opinion" on the "legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem".

The court will probably deliver its opinion before the end of the year, but it is not binding on anyone.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al Maliki told reporters after the US statement: "I expected much more. I didn't hear anything new."

Washington has been insisting that the Palestinian-Israel conflict be addressed in "other fora and not here", Al Maliki said.

"Well, we tried other fora for the last 75 years and we confronted the US veto and the US hegemony over decision-making processes within the UN system," he said.

"And that's why we came to the ICJ."

Israel is not taking part in the oral hearings, but submitted a written contribution in which it described the questions the court had been asked as “prejudicial” and “tendentious”.

The October 7 surprise attacks and the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip “reinforce the United States’ resolve to urgently achieve a final peace”, Visek said.

Also speaking Wednesday, the representative from Egypt, which has played a key role in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, said the occupation was “a continued violation of international law”.

“The consequences of Israel’s prolonged occupation are clear and there can be no peace, no stability, no prosperity without upholding the rule of law,” Foreign Ministry Legal Adviser Jasmine Moussa said.

The hearings began Monday with three hours of testimony from Palestinian officials, who accused the Israeli occupiers of running a system of “colonialism and apartheid”.

Al Maliki had urged the judges to call for an end to the occupation “immediately, totally and unconditionally”.

South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands told the court that Israel’s policies were “more extreme” than the apartheid black South Africans suffered before 1994.

The case is separate from a high-profile case brought by Pretoria against Israel for alleged genocide during its current offensive in Gaza.

In that case, the ICJ ruled that Israel should do everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and allow in humanitarian aid.

UNITED NATIONS, United States — The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Tuesday that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, drawing stern criticism from allies as President Joe Biden faces mounting pressure to temper support for Israel.

Washington had circulated its own, alternative draft resolution ahead of the vote. Unlike past US efforts, that version does feature the word "ceasefire" — but with no call for it to be enacted immediately.

Tuesday's resolution, which Algeria had been working on for three weeks, had demanded "an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties".

Washington's veto was "absolutely reckless and dangerous". said Palestinian representative to the UN Riyad Mansour.

But Washington's ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that proceeding with the vote Tuesday was "wishful and irresponsible".

"We cannot support a resolution that would put sensitive negotiations in jeopardy," she said, referring to talks to free hostages in Gaza.

The veto provoked a chorus of criticism of Washington — not just from China and Russia, which have rejected the resolute US backing for Israel, but also from US allies including France, Malta and Slovenia.

“We voted for the resolution because the killing of civilians in Gaza must stop. The suffering that Palestinians are enduring is beyond anything a human being should be subjected to,” said Slovenia’s Representative to the UN Security Council Samuel Zbogar.

“The human toll and the humanitarian situation is intolerable and Israeli operations must stop,” said the French Ambassador to the UN Nicolas de Riviere.

Algeria’s Envoy Amar Bendjama said “the draft resolution would have sent a strong message to Palestinians... unfortunately the Security Council failed once again.”

“Examine your conscience, how will history judge you,” Bendjama said.

The vote came as Israel prepares to move into the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, where some 1.4 million people have fled, as part of its mission to destroy the Palestinian fighter group Hamas.

However as the death toll in Gaza soars, Israel is facing increased pressure to hold off, including from its closest ally the United States.

“This is not, as some members have claimed, an American effort to cover for an imminent ground incursion,” said Thomas-Greenfield ahead of the vote.

The draft resolution had opposed the “forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population”.

It additionally demanded the release of all hostages taken by Hamas in an attack on October 7.

 ‘Make Israel nervous’ 

But the text did not condemn that assault by Hamas, which left about 1,160 people dead in southern Israel, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 29,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Russia’s Envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said Washington’s draft text was intended to “detract attention from the latest shameful veto exercise by the US”.

The United States had warned over the weekend that Algeria’s text was not acceptable, arguing that it would endanger ongoing delicate negotiations to free the hostages in Gaza.

Instead, the alternate version offered by the US echoes recent comments by Biden, who has come under increasing pressure from his supporters ahead of November presidential elections.

It supports a “temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released”.

It also mentions concern for Rafah, stating that “a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances”.

The US text “as it is... cannot pass”, one diplomatic source said, pointing to several issues around the phrasing of “ceasefire”.

Eyebrows were raised among some diplomats who questioned Washington’s true intent.

“Do they really want this resolution or do they want to push the other side to veto?” asked one, pointing to the likelihood of a Russian veto of any text produced by the United States.

The mere fact the United States has introduced a counter-resolution is likely to “make Israel nervous”, Richard Gowan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP.

SANAA — Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Monday they struck a British ship in the Gulf of Aden, after a maritime security firm reported overnight an attack on a UK-registered ship.

The group targeted "a British ship in the Gulf of Aden, "RUBYMAR", with a number of appropriate naval missiles," the Huthis' military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement.

He added that the vessel is "now at risk of potential sinking in the Gulf of Aden" after receiving "extensive damage" during the attack.

Maritime security firm Ambrey meanwhile reported an attack on a "Belize-flagged, UK-registered and Lebanese-operated open hatch general cargo ship" in the Bab Al Mandeb strait, a waterway connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

It said the vessel was headed north from the United Arab Emirates heading to a final destination in the Bulgarian port city of Varna.

A British maritime security agency said a ship 35 nautical miles from Yemen's port of Mokha reported "an explosion in close proximity to the vessel resulting in damage".

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations confirmed later that the crew were safe after evacuating the vessel.

The Houthis said they "made sure that the ship's crew exited safely".

The rebels, who control much of war-torn Yemen, have been targeting Red Sea shipping for months in protest against the Hamas-Israel war.

Their attacks have triggered reprisals by US and British forces, the latest of which was on Sunday.

Ambrey also said they had seen reports that the ship's crew "were rescued by another merchant vessel", adding that the movement of a Singaporean-flagged container ship was consistent with this.

It also noted a drift pattern in recent days "consistent with engine failure".

"It was unconfirmed at the time of writing what halted the vessel," it added.

The Houthis also said they shot down a US MQ9 aircraft, a claim Washington has yet to address.

BEIRUT — At least two Israeli air strikes hit southern Lebanon on Monday near the coastal city of Sidon, state media and an AFP photographer said.

Hamas ally Hizbollah and its arch-foe Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Hamas-Israel war broke out on October 7.

"Israeli warplanes carried out... strikes on the town of Ghaziyeh," the state-run National News Agency (NNA) said on Monday, adding that a vehicle was targeted and ambulances rushed to the scene, without providing further details.

While most the exchanges in recent months have been limited to areas near the frontier, Ghaziyeh is some 30 kilometres from the nearest Israeli frontier and less than 5 kilometres from the city of Sidon.

The AFP photographer reported the sound of at least two successive strikes in Ghaziyeh, with dark smoke billowing across the area.

One of the strikes appeared to have targeted a hangar close to the main coastal highway, the photographer added.

The NNA had earlier in the afternoon reported an “enemy drone” at low altitude over the Sidon area.

Video circulating on social media showed large plumes of smoke arising from at least two strikes.

The Israeli military last week said it killed a Hizbollah commander, his deputy and another fighter in a strike in the south Lebanon city of Nabatiyeh.

The strike on a residential building also killed seven members of the same family, according to a security source, while another strike elsewhere killed a woman, her child and stepchild.

On Friday, Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed that Israel would pay “with blood” for civilians it killed in Lebanon in recent days, warning the group had missiles that could reach anywhere in Israel.

He warned that his Iran-backed movement has “precision-guided missiles that can reach... Eilat”, on Israel’s Red Sea coast, well beyond the northern towns it usually targets.

The latest uptick in violence has caused international alarm, with fears growing of another full-blown war between Israel and Hizbollah like that of 2006.

Since October, cross-border exchanges have killed at least 269 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hizbollah fighters but also including 40 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli forces.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Israel has threatened to invade Gaza's Rafah by the start of Ramadan if Hamas does not return the remaining hostages by then, despite international pressure to protect Palestinian civilians sheltering in the southern city.

With prospects for truce talks dimmed, the United States and other governments, as well as the United Nations, have issued increasingly urgent appeals to Israel to call off its planned offensive on Rafah.

The Israeli government says the city on the Egypt border is the last remaining stronghold in Gaza of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

But it is also where three-quarters of the displaced Palestinian population has fled, taking shelter in sprawling tent encampments without access to adequate food, water or medicine.

"The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know, if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area," Benny Gantz, a retired military chief of staff, told a conference of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday.

"Hamas has a choice. They can surrender, release the hostages and the civilians of Gaza can celebrate the feast of Ramadan," added Gantz, a member of the three-person war cabinet.

Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, is expected to begin around March 10.

Gantz said the offensive will be carried out in coordination with American and Egyptian partners to “minimise the civilian casualties as much as possible”.

But where Palestinians can go after four months of war have flattened vast swathes of the Strip remains unclear.

“There’s no safe place. Even the hospital is not safe,” Ahmad Mohammed Aburizq told AFP from the morgue of a Rafah hospital where mourners gathered around a loved one wrapped in a white body bag.

“That’s my cousin — he was martyred in Al Mawasi, in the ‘safe area’. And my mother was martyred the day before.”

‘Total victory’ 

For weeks, international mediators have sought to broker a truce-for-hostages deal that would pause fighting for six weeks.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has played down the possibility of an impending breakthrough, calling Hamas’s demands “delusional”.

Even if a deal is struck, he insists the campaign to eliminate Hamas from Gaza will not be completed until clearing Rafah.

“Deal or no deal, we have to finish the job to get total victory,” he said at the Jerusalem conference on Sunday.

At the UN’s Security Council, the United States signalled it would veto the latest UN draft resolution seeking an immediate ceasefire should it come to a vote this week.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the resolution would jeopardise the ongoing truce talks, as well as the broader aim of “an enduring resolution of hostilities”.

Western governments have increasingly pushed for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state to be part of that wider peace process, but Israel’s government on Sunday unanimously adopted a declaration rejecting such recognition.

“After the terrible massacre of October 7, there can be no greater reward for terrorism than that and it will prevent any future peace settlement,” Netanyahu said.

Hamas has meanwhile threatened to suspend its involvement in any ceasefire negotiations unless relief supplies reach Gaza’s north, where aid agencies have warned of looming famine.

 ‘Crying from hunger’ 

On Sunday morning, dozens of Israelis blocked Gaza-bound aid trucks from entering through the Nitzana crossing with Egypt, AFP reporters and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

Gazans say they are going so hungry they are grinding animal feed into flour.

“My children are starving, they wake up crying from hunger. Where do I get food for them?” a northern Gazan woman told AFP.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said nearly three in four people are drinking contaminated water.

“The speed of deterioration in Gaza is unprecedented,” it said.

After a week-long siege, the largest hospital still functional in Gaza is no longer operational, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

At least 20 of the 200 patients still at the Nasser Hospital urgently require relocation to other facilities, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, adding that his organisation “was not permitted to enter” the site.

Seven patients, including a child, have died there since Friday due to power cuts, and “70 medical staff including intensive care doctors” have been arrested, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

TULKARM, Palestinian Territories — Israeli occupation forces killed two Palestinian men during a raid in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The deaths were the latest in a surge of violence in the Palestinian territory that has prompted growing international concern since Hamas's October 7 sudden attack on southern Israel sparked the Gaza war.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell on Sunday described the situation in the West Bank as being at boiling point and warned that "we could be on the eve of a greater explosion".

The Palestinian health ministry said two men, aged 19 and 36, were pronounced dead from gunshot wounds following an army raid in the Tulkarm refugee camp, in the north of the West Bank, which the UN says houses over 27,000 Palestinian refugees.

At least five other people were wounded in the Israeli military operation, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The Israeli forces has stepped up its near daily raids across the West Bank in the aftermath of the attack on southern Israel in October.

At least 398 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since October 7, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Israel captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem — which it later occupied — and the Gaza Strip in 1967 during the June War.

Around 3 million Palestinians live in the territory alongside roughly 490,000 Israelis in settlements deemed illegal under international law.

The Palestinians seek the territory as the heartland of a future independent state.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Mediator Qatar acknowledged on Saturday that prospects for a new pause in Israel's war with Hamas were "not really promising" as Israel rejected appeals to hold off on a threatened assault on the Gaza city of Rafah.

Truce efforts intensified this week as Qatar and fellow mediators Egypt and the United States scrambled to secure a ceasefire before Israeli forces enter Rafah, the last major population centre in Gaza untouched by Israeli ground troops.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who met with negotiators from both Israel and Hamas this week, said efforts for a ceasefire had been complicated by the insistence of "a lot of countries" that any new truce involve further releases of hostages.

"The pattern in the last few days is not really very promising," he said at the Munich Security Conference.

His assessment came as Hamas threatened to suspend its involvement in talks unless relief supplies are brought into the north, where aid agencies have warned of looming famine.

"Negotiations cannot be held while hunger is ravaging the Palestinian people," a senior source in the Palestinian militant group told AFP, asking not to be identified as he is not authorised to speak on the issue.

Earlier, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh reiterated the group's demands, which Netanyahu called "ludicrous".

They include a complete pause in fighting, the release of Hamas prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Israel said on Saturday it detained 100 people at one of Gaza’s main hospitals after troops raided the complex, with fears mounting for patients and staff trapped inside.

At least 120 patients and five medical teams are stuck without water, food and electricity in Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel has for weeks concentrated its military operations in Khan Yunis, the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the October 7 sudden attack that triggered the war. 

Intense fighting has raged around Nasser Hospital — one of the territory’s last major medical facilities that remains operational.

The Israeli military said troops entered the hospital on Thursday, acting on what it said was “credible intelligence” that hostages had been held there. It later acknowledged it found no firm evidence that they had.

The power was cut and the generators stopped after the raid, leading to the deaths of six patients due to a lack of oxygen, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

A witness, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told AFP the Israeli forces had shot “at anyone who moved inside the hospital”.

 ‘We need food now’ 

In northern Gaza, many are so desperate for food they are grinding up animal feed.

“We’re going to die from hunger, not by bombs or missiles,” said Mohammed Nassar, 50, from Jabalia in northern Gaza. 

As a much-needed delivery of supplies arrived in southern Gaza Saturday, the UN warned that Gazans are close to famine.

Palestinians in Rafah have grown so hungry that they are stopping aid trucks to take whatever they can manage, according to the UN.

With intense fighting around Khan Yunis, even more people are fleeing into Rafah, despite the risk of an imminent invasion there too, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The promised military operation has ignited speculation that Palestinian refugees could be forced into neighbouring Egypt.

After satellite images appeared to show extensive construction work along the border, an Egyptian human rights monitor claimed preparations were underway for a camp to receive displaced Palestinians in the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt has publicly denied any such plans and since the start of the war has refused to open its border to refugees.