Published: 30 October 2023 Author: Stefan Talmon
In response to Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attack against Israel on 7 October 2023, in which more than 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, were brutally killed, more than 5,300 wounded, and some 230 abducted to the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) bombed Hamas targets in Gaza and, on 9 October 2023, declared a total siege of the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that ‘[t]here will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.’ Hamas, nevertheless, continued to fire rockets indiscriminately towards Israel. By 13 October 2023, Israeli airstrikes had killed some 1,800 Palestinians, including some 580 children, and injured about 7,300. In addition, some 423,000 civilians were displaced within the Gaza Strip due to the military strikes. Against the background of an impending humanitarian catastrophe, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for ‘pauses in the fighting’ to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. On 13 October 2023, the Russian Federation put forward a draft resolution for consideration by the Security Council, which called for ‘an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire’. On 18 October 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres joined the call for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space … to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing.’ (more…)