Muscat: The Sultanate of Oman has affirmed that the Security Council resolution issued on Saturday regarding the Gaza Strip represents welcome progress, but it does not meet the broad international consensus calling for a ceasefire, calling for the need to ensure the continuous and effective flow of humanitarian and relief aid to the entire Strip.
The UN Security Council (UNSC) on Friday demanded aid be rushed to Gaza "at scale" as the head of the World Health Organization warned of a looming famine in the besieged Palestinian territory.
As Israeli bombs rained down on targets across Gaza, members of the UN's top peacemaking council demanded "immediate, safe and unhindered" deliveries of life-saving aid.
At Washington's insistence, the UN Security Council avoided calling for a ceasefire that would stop the 11-week-old war.
After the UN vote, Israel vowed to continue its air and ground assault until the Palestinian group is "eliminated" and an estimated 129 hostages still being held in the territory are freed.
Gaza's ministry claimed more than 410 people had been killed in Israeli bombardments over 48 hours, including 16 in a strike Friday in the Gaza City district of Jabalia. Four members of one family, including a girl, died in another strike on a civilian vehicle in Rafah in southern Gaza, said the ministry, which puts the death toll from the war at over 20,000.
With swathes of Gaza reduced to rubble, many Gazans have been forced into crowded shelters or tents, and are struggling to find food, fuel, water and medical supplies. WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that "hunger is present, and famine is looming in Gaza". He said a majority of displaced people were going "entire days and nights without eating". The UN estimates that fighting has displaced almost two million Gazans, almost 80 percent of the population. "This is not a life: no water, no food, nothing," said wheelchair-bound Walaa al-Medini, who is now in the Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, after a strike on her home in Gaza City. "My daughter died in my lap, and I was rescued from under the rubble after three hours," she said. "Our house, along with everything around us, was destroyed." Time is running out for a Christmas-time truce, despite ongoing talks brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.
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