U.N. passes resolution on Gaza aid with U.S. abstaining from vote

UNICEF estimates at least 1 of 4 houses in Gaza — more than half a million people — "are facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, the highest level of warning," UNICEF said in a statement.

The statement added that an estimated 1.2 million people are facing "emergency levels of acute food insecurity," noting that "famine thresholds for acute food insecurity have already been exceeded."

"In short, this means for many families in Gaza, the threat of dying from hunger is already real," the statement said.

Additionally, all children in Gaza under the age of five — totaling 335,000 — are at "high risk of severe malnutrition and preventable death as the risk of famine conditions continues to increase."

According to a UNICEF estimate, "in the coming weeks, at least 10,000 children under five years will suffer the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, known as severe wasting, and will need therapeutic foods."

While UNICEF said the situation in Gaza is "unacceptable," it acknowledged that it can be reversed and a coming famine can be averted if there is an "immediate and long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire" so food and services can be brought into the enclave.

The three Israeli hostages had been in captivity for 65 days when they received a glimmer of hope. A group of Israeli soldiers arrived at the building in Gaza where they were holed up with their captors.

The soldiers released a combat dog into the building equipped with a GoPro camera. The Hamas militants killed the canine, setting off a firefight with the soldiers. The hostages’ captors died in the gunbattle, but the soldiers moved off, unaware that their compatriots were inside, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Five days after that missed opportunity, the three hostages were mistakenly killed by Israeli soldiers, an incident that has thrown Israel into a new phase of mourning and sparked public outrage.

The hostages, Alon Shamriz, 26; Yotam Haim, 28; and Samar Talalka, 24, had emerged from a different building bare-chested and holding a makeshift white flag Dec. 15, but they were shot dead by soldiers who thought they were walking into an ambush and hadn’t accounted for the possibility that escaped hostages could be moving around Gaza City, according to a preliminary IDF investigation.

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JERUSALEM — The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.

In just over two months, the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group.

The Israeli military has said little about what kinds of bombs and artillery it is using in Gaza. But from blast fragments found on-site and analyses of strike footage, experts are confident that the vast majority of bombs dropped on the besieged enclave are U.S.-made. They say the weapons include 2,000-pound “bunker-busters” that have killed hundreds in densely populated areas.

With the Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpassing 20,000, the international community is calling for a cease-fire. Israel vows to press ahead, saying it wants to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities following the militant group’s Oct. 7 cross-border rampage that triggered the war, in which it killed 1,200 people and took 240 others hostage.

The Biden administration has quietly continued to supply arms to Israel. Last week, however, President Joe Biden publicly acknowledged that Israel was losing international legitimacy for what he called its “indiscriminate bombing.”

The family of Gadi Haggai, an Israeli American, says he was shot during the Oct. 7 attacks and has died. His wife remains in captivity.

The news was announced today as negotiations for the release of the hostages have apparently stalled.

The National Security Council directly blamed Iran for Houthi attacks on shipping vessels, calling out the country's "robust" support of Houthi rebels including "proliferation of advanced weapons systems, intelligence support, and financial aid and training," according to NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

The statement added that such support has enabled the Houthis to carry out attacks against maritime targets and that the NSC has knowledge that Iran was "deeply involved in planning the operations against commercial vessels in the Red Sea."

"We have no reason to believe that Iran is trying to dissuade the Houthis from this reckless behavior," the NSC statement said. "These attacks on commercial shipping in international waters by the Houthis are a flagrant violation of international law and represent a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security. They are totally unacceptable and have to stop."

GAZA — All Palestinian surgeon Bashir al-Hourani has to work with in the central Gaza school where he helps run a field clinic amid Israel’s pounding offensive is gauze and disinfectant as he treats walking wounded turned away from overstretched hospitals.

“We don’t have anything else,” he said, showing a bottle of iodine he was using to wash the long operating scar running down the torso and stomach of an injured man.

“This patient should be in hospital but because of overcrowding he was transferred to the field hospital,” he said.

“We have dozens like this patient. We have children it’s hard to treat. We change their dressings one day and the next we find infection because there is no sterilisation, there are no specialised places. There are no bin bags,” he said.

Al-Sayedah Khadija School is located in Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the tiny crowded Palestinian enclave that Israeli forces have been besieging, bombarding and in recent weeks invading in response to a deadly Hamas attack on Oct. 7.

Biden issued a statement saying he and the first lady were "heartbroken by the news that American Gad Haggai is now believed to have been killed by Hamas on October 7."

Haggai, a 73-year-old U.S. citizen, had been kidnapped from kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7. His wife is still being held in Gaza.

"Today, we are praying for their four children, seven grandchildren, and other loved ones and are grieving this tragic news with them," Biden said in the statement. "And I reaffirm the pledge we have made to all the families of those still held hostage: we will not stop working to bring them home."

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour welcomed the U.N. resolution "to accelerate the provision of humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza and call for its rapid implementation" during "this inhumane situation," he said in remarks following the vote.

Noting that the U.N. Security Council "also called for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access," Mansour renewed calls for a cease-fire in Gaza.

"Mr. President, let us act now to save lives, to provide life-saving assistance and life-sustaining hope. This resolution is a step in the right direction. It must be implemented and must be accompanied by massive pressure for an immediate cease-fire," Mansour said. "I repeat — immediate cease-fire. There is no way to stop the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide underway but an immediate cease-fire."

Hamas said the newly passed United Nations resolution to aid Palestinian civilians trapped by the fighting in Gaza was an "insufficient step."

The Israelis, the militant group said in an official statement posted on its Telegram channel, created the "catastrophic situation" when their forces invaded Gaza. The U.N. resolution will not "stop the genocidal war waged by the terrorist occupation entity against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip," the statement said.

Hamas blamed the U.S. for working "hard to empty this resolution of its essence, and to issue it in this weak formula."

"It is the duty of the U.N. Security Council to oblige the occupation to bring aid in sufficient quantities into all areas of the Gaza Strip, especially the areas of the northern Gaza Strip, which, in addition to the daily massacres, are subjected to a fascist siege and an ongoing starvation policy," the Hamas statement said.

Israel has denied deliberately targeting Palestinians civilians and has accused Hamas of using its own people as human shields. The reported Palestinian death toll now stands at more than 20,000.