Sin categoría

The US will ask for the first time in a UN resolution “an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza

The United States will present in the coming days, probably tomorrow, a resolution in which for the first time it will specifically ask for “an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, after having opposed three resolutions of other countries that requested it.

It was Secretary of State Antony Blinken who announced a few hours ago in Cairo that the resolution had been presented to the Council, but there is no certainty that it will be voted on tomorrow.

Blinken made it clear that the ceasefire would be “linked to the release of the hostages” in the hands of Hamas, although that release is no longer a precondition, as appeared in the first versions of the text circulated by the American diplomats.

The United States needed to present six different versions for more than a month until it reached what seems like a consensus text. It remains to be seen if it gets the support of nine nations and does not receive a veto by any permanent member country (in this case Russia or China). Two necessary conditions to approve any resolution.

The key paragraph of the Washington resolution says that “an immediate and sustained ceasefire is imperative to protect civilians on both sides, allow the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, alleviate human suffering (…) and support diplomatic efforts to guarantee that ceasefire in connection with the release of all hostages.”

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Last Monday’s publication of a UN report that warned that 1.1 million Gazans face the most serious levels of famine and food insecurity in a matter of days seems to have accelerated U.S. diplomatic efforts.

The French ambassador to the UN, Nicolas de Rivière, went out that same Monday to ask for urgent action from the Council to stop the war “now, not next week,” he said graphically.

In the previous resolutions vetoed by the United States, American diplomacy criticized several details: that they did not reflect Israel’s right to defend itself, that they did not condemn Hamas as a “terrorist” and that if a ceasefire was declared, that would allow the rearmament of Hamas.

Therefore, in this resolution that Washington now promotes, those same ideas appear in some way but in a more lowered tone, in order to win the support of member countries such as Russia, China or Algeria, which have harshly criticized on the past occasions the American attitude of seamless support for Israel.

The new resolution makes precise allusions to the protection of civilians, access to humanitarian aid, opposition to altering the map of Gaza with ‘security runners’ and the rejection of the forced displacement of civilians, arguments that can garner unanimous support from all countries.

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However, it also contains phrases that are more difficult to achieve consensus, such as the request to Member States to “intensify their efforts to suppress the financing of terrorism, including restrictions on the financing of Hamas.”

In any case, the calls for a ceasefire already come from all UN agencies, from Muslim, African and Asian countries. And now also from the majority of the Western world, including countries that in the first weeks of the war had a more pro-Israeli attitude as in the case of France and the United Kingdom.

Sin categoría

Russia moves more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers to the border with Ukraine

Russia moved more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers to areas near the border with Ukraine in the last week of October, Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) reported.

North Korean troops were transferred from training camps in eastern Russia – of which there are at least 5 – with the help of at least 28 military aircraft, GUR revealed on its Telegram channel.

The soldiers were equipped by Russia with mortars, AK-12 assault rifles, various machine guns, sniper rifles and anti-tank weapons. They also received some vision devices, thermographic cameras, sights and binoculars, according to GUR.

“It’s quite surprising that the world is turning a blind eye”

“It is quite surprising that the world is turning a blind eye to North Korea’s increasingly aggressive actions,” reacted Andri Yermak, head of the Ukrainian President’s office, Volodimir Zelenski.

Ukraine sees all the places where Russia is concentrating North Korean soldiers and could carry out preventive attacks against them if it had the permission of its Western allies, Zelenski had said on Friday night.

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Instead of granting Ukraine this capacity, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany are “simply waiting” for North Korean soldiers to start attacking the Ukrainians, the president wrote on Telegram, urging his country’s allies to act to prevent the escalation of the war.

Russia knocks down 26 Ukrainian drones

In addition, Russian anti-aircraft defenses shot down 24 Ukrainian drones last night over six regions of the country and the annexed Crimean peninsula, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported today on its Telegram channel.

According to the military report, all the unmanned aircraft used in the attack were fixed-wing.

Drones shot down in the Kursk region

Eight of the drones destroyed last night were shot down in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine and part of whose territory has been occupied by Ukrainian troops since last August.

The night before over the Kursk region, 34 Ukrainian drones were destroyed.

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The situation in that Russian federated entity is being followed with great attention because both the United States and NATO have denounced the deployment by Moscow of North Korean troops in that territory.

The Russian Ministry of Defense indicated that the other drones shot down last night were intercepted over the regions of Bryansk (8), Belgorod (2), Rostov (1) – all of them also bordering Ukraine -, Oriol (3), Nizhny Novgorod (1) and the Crimean Peninsula (1).

Sin categoría

UN envoy for the Sahara: “it’s time for Morocco to explain its autonomy plan”

The UN special envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan De Mistura, stressed yesterday before the Security Council that “the time has come for Morocco to explain and detail its proposal for autonomy,” something he said he had “reiterated respectfully but firmly” to the Government of Rabat.

In his presentation yesterday before the Council behind closed doors, to which the media had access today, De Mistura showed his impatience for the blocking of the peace process between Morocco and the Saharawi independence group Polisario Front, and confessed that he even proposed a partition of the Saharawi territory between the north, which would be for Morocco, and the south, which would become an independent state, but he regretted having reaped a refusal by both parties.

Exposition of the UN envoy

He dedicated a large part of his exhibition to exploring the idea of Moroccan autonomy -categorically rejected by the Polisario-, and said that it has worked in places of the world as different as Greenland, Upper Adige or Scotland, but it remains to know what Morocco proposes for the Sahara beyond “a three-page plan” exposed in 2007.

That plan,” said De Mistura, has created expectations “and even the right to better understand what it means,” a right shared by the people affected but also by the Security Council and the UN General Secretariat, and even by the countries that in one way or another have supported it as a principle.

“It must be explained how this option can provide some kind of worthy form of self-determination for the people of the Sahara, and under what modality,” De Mistura insisted before the Council, before recalling that Morocco “must provide details of its vision.”

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It’s almost 50 years since the beginning of the conflict

De Mistura concluded his speech by recalling that in 2025 it will be 50 years since the beginning of the conflict and that, if from now until six months there is no progress between the parties – that they do not even sit at the same table – it would be legitimate to ask about the involvement that the United Nations must continue to have in the process.

The UN sent a mission to the Sahara in 1991 (Minurso) in order to organize a self-determination referendum, but later Morocco put obstacles to that referendum and since 2007 has only proposed an imprecise offer of autonomy.

Since then, the Minurso has been left with the only task of observing the ceasefire, sporadically broken by both parties.

Sin categoría

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris see the end of the conflict in Gaza closer after the death of the Hamas leader

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the vice president and Democratic candidate for the White House, Kamala Harris, reacted this Thursday to the death of the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, in an Israeli operation and pointed out that there is now more room to “end the war.”

In a statement, Biden said that Sinwar’s death is an “opportunity” to reach an agreement that “provides a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians” and that allows the Gaza Strip to access a “day after” without Hamas in power.

“Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all those goals. That obstacle no longer exists, but there is still a lot of work ahead,” said Biden, who later spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, Biden congratulated Netanyahu on Sinwar’s death and both agreed that this fact opens an opportunity for the release of the hostages in the hands of Hamas.

The White House also indicated that the two leaders talked about “how to take advantage of this moment to take the hostages back home and close the conflict, guaranteeing Israel’s security and preventing Hamas from controlling Gaza again.”

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The conversation took place while Biden was traveling to Germany on the Air Force One presidential plane.

Kamala Harris sees a better world

For his part, Harris, in statements to the press from Wisconsin, said that “Justice has been done. The United States, Israel and the rest of the world are a better place.”

According to the vice president, U.S. special operations and intelligence personnel worked closely with their Israeli counterparts to locate the leader of the Islamist group.

After Sinwar’s death, said the Democratic Party candidate in the US presidential elections, Hamas is decimated” and that opens up an “opportunity to end the war in Gaza.”

The end of the conflict, he said, must include security guarantees for Israel, the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas and the end of the “suffering” of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

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“We will not give up these goals and I will always work to create a future of peace, dignity and security for all,” said the Democratic candidate.

Who was the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar?

Born in a refugee camp in Jan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, Sinwar was elected leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017 after arbilling a reputation as a bitter enemy of Israel and on August 6 – after the murder in Tehran of the then head of the political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh – he was chosen to occupy the highest position in the organization chart of the Islamist group.

He represented the hardest and most belligerent line of the group and is considered by Israel as the mastermind of the attacks of October 7 against Israeli territory in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were kidnapped, which made him the man most wanted by Israel.

Around 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT), the Israeli Army announced that it was investigating whether one of three militiamen killed in operations in Gaza was Sinwar, but said it could not confirm it until it had the results of fingerprint, dental and DNA tests, all of which were already positive.

According to the scarce information revealed so far, Sinwar’s death occurred yesterday, Wednesday 16, in a fortuitous encounter between Israeli troops and militiamen in Rafah, southern the Palestinian enclave, but it was not based on intelligence information.

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According to the Army, together with him they did not find any kidnapped nor were their lives in danger.

Israeli media point out that Sinwar would have remained hidden with Israeli hostages in the tunnels of the Strip until the end of August, when Hamas murdered six kidnapped people in Rafah a day before Israeli troops approached them.