MANHATTAN: The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the recent escalating tensions between the Israeli-occupation troops and Palestinian resistance forces in the Gaza Strip.
In a press statement, the 15-member Council announced that it will gather at 3:00 p.m. local time (midnight PST) ) to deliberate on “the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.”
The closed-door meeting is taking place after hundreds of people were killed and thousands injured in Israel and Gaza
after Hamas launched rockets into the border towns of the Jewish state.
Brazil, which holds the UN Security Council presidency, announced Saturday that it would call a meeting of the body to address the escalating violence.
“The Brazilian government condemns the series of bombings and ground attacks carried out today in Israel starting from the Gaza Strip,” Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Brazil will convene an emergency meeting of the Security Council and “urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid escalating the situation,” it added.
Brazil “reiterates its commitment to a two-state solution, with Palestine and Israel living together in peace and security.”
Gaza-based Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on Israel Saturday morning, firing thousands of rockets and sending gunmen into Israeli communities by land, sea and air.
The multi-pronged attack appears to have caught the Israeli military and security forces completely by surprise.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan sent a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Sergio Franca Danese, the Brazilian ambassador who holds the Security Council presidency this month, calling on the Security Council
to immediately condemn Hamas.
Erdan also placed blame on Iran for funding and directing Hamas.
“The State of Israel will act in any way necessary to protect its citizens and sovereignty from the ongoing terrorist attacks originating from the Gaza Strip and carried out by Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” he wrote.
“We will not stand idly by as Israelis are attacked and killed.”
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday the Palestinian group was on the “verge of a great victory” after it launched a surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip.
“We are on the verge of a great victory and a clear conquest on the Gaza front,” Haniyeh said in a speech broadcast on Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television.
“Enough is enough, the cycle of intifadas (uprisings) and revolutions in the battle to liberate our (Palestinian) land and our prisoners languishing in occupation (Israeli) prisons must be completed.”
Amid growing tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a “state of war” in a post on his X account early on Sunday and warned of a response to the Palestinian reprisal attacks.
Netanyahu ordered a significant mobilization of the occupation’s reserve troops and initiated ground offensives against Palestinian forces near the besieged Gaza Strip.
Claiming that the regime’s forces had destroyed “most” of the Palestinian targets, Netanyahu said the offensive into Gaza would continue “without hesitation and without respite until the goals are achieved.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the regime would stop supplying electricity, fuel, and goods to the besieged Gaza Strip, much of which is already thrown into darkness by nightfall after electrical supplies were cut off by Tel Aviv.
Newspakistan.tv/AFP/APP
