UN General Assembly considers resolution calling for immediate Gaza ceasefire

 

Children play in the balcony of an apartment next to a man checking the destruction after an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat camp, in the central Gaza Strip, on December 10, 2024.

The U.N. General Assembly is set to consider a draft resolution Wednesday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as well as the release of all hostages still being held by militants.

The meeting comes weeks after the United States voted against a similar measure at the U.N. Security Council.

The General Assembly has previously approved a ceasefire call, but its resolutions are non-binding, unlike the Security Council.

The draft under consideration also demands that Palestinian civilians in Gaza be given immediate access to aid necessary to survival, including unhindered access for humanitarian deliveries throughout the Gaza Strip.

U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday that aid to northern Gaza has been largely blocked for two months, leaving 65,000 to 75,000 Palestinians without access to food, water, electricity or health care.

Israeli forces carried out airstrikes in northern and central Gaza on Wednesday that Palestinian health officials said killed at least 26 people.

At least 19 of the dead were killed in a strike that hit a house in Beit Lahiya, the officials said.

Another airstrike hit a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, killing at least seven people.

Hamas set off the war with its October 2023 attack on southern Israel during which the militants killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostage.

Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 44,700 people, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The conflict sparked fighting at the Israel-Lebanon border as Hamas ally Hezbollah launched cross-border attacks on northern Israel. The two sides carried out low-scale attacks for months before the conflict erupted in September with Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon and airstrikes that killed a number of Hezbollah leaders.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has been in place since late November.

Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated as terror groups by the United States, United Kingdom and other Western countries.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters

By：VOA