On Tuesday, international pressure grew on Israel and Hamas to extend a temporary ceasefire to a permanent end to the war in Gaza, as China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned the U.N. Security Council that a resumption of fighting was “most likely to turn into a catastrophe.” engulfing the entire region.”
Mr. Wang’s comments came during a Security Council meeting focused on the war, in which a fragile ceasefire has been in place since Friday. China holds the rotating presidency of the Council this month.
Numerous other foreign ministers from Arab countries in the Middle East and the 15-member council also took part in the meeting. The majority of them, along with senior UN officials, called for the temporary ceasefire to be made permanent to prevent the war from spreading and to ease suffering in Gaza.
The war took a staggering toll on civilians on both sides. Hamas-led terrorist groups attacked Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 240 people hostage, including women and children.
In response, Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed more than 14,000 people in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas government in the enclave.
According to the United Nations, 1.8 million people in Gaza, or more than 80 percent of the coastal enclave’s population, have been displaced.
António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, has been calling for an end to the fighting for weeks and reiterated his earlier comments on Wednesday, telling the council that an “epic humanitarian catastrophe” was unfolding in Gaza.
He said that since he took the helm of the United Nations in 2017, Israeli military operations have killed more children “than the total number of children killed by any party to the conflict in a single year.” Gaza’s Health Ministry and the United Nations have said thousands of children were killed.
The temporary ceasefire was part of an agreement that included exchanging dozens of hostages held in Gaza for about three times the number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The ceasefire also allowed a significant increase in deliveries of humanitarian aid, including food, fuel and cooking gas, to the battered enclave.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted fighting will resume under pressure from far-right members of his coalition government to reject an extension of the ceasefire. On Wednesday, he said in a statement that “there is no situation in which we do not fight again to the end” – an end that Israel has defined as the destruction of Hamas.
At the council meeting, Israel’s ambassador Gilad Erdan closely echoed Mr. Netanyahu’s position, accusing those calling for a ceasefire of siding with Hamas, whose founding principle is the destruction of Israel.
Tor Wennesland, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the council that the international community must mobilize to work with Israel and the Palestinian authorities to find a lasting political solution. “The only viable path is that which leads to the realization of a two-state solution,” Mr Wennesland said.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. wants an extension of the ceasefire, better protection of civilians in the conflict and a two-state solution. But she shied away from calling for an end to the war.
Before the council meeting began, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia stood together outside the council chamber and told reporters that the conflict should not resume.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, said that if the ceasefire were to expire: “We will return to the killings on the scale that we have seen, which is intolerable.” That is why we are here to be clear say that a ceasefire is not enough.”