CAIRO, December 25. /TASS/. Over 130 people have been killed over the past 24 hours as a result of Israeli strikes on refugee camps, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said.
According to it, "as a result of bombardment of al-Bureij, Khan Younis and al-Maghazi camps, residential neighborhoods were destroyed, more than 130 people were killed, many bodies remain under the rubble, most of the dead are women, children, the elderly and the wounded." "It is clear that genocide and comprehensive destruction have spread from the north of the Gaza Strip to its central and southern parts," the Foreign Ministry emphasized.
Israel's continued escalation is preventing "any international mechanism to deliver aid and meet the basic humanitarian needs of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip," the Foreign Ministry noted. The ministry says Israel is "underestimating the international consensus on the need to end the war against Palestinian civilians" and is "deliberately brutalizing massacres to thwart the international and US objectives of UN Security Council Resolution 2720."
On December 22, the UN Security Council adopted a draft resolution prepared by Arab countries that aims to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Thirteen countries voted in favor of the document, while Russia and the US abstained. The initial version of the draft was significantly adjusted due to the US position. The key change was the proposal to create a mechanism for monitoring humanitarian cargoes under UN oversight. Instead, the document now suggests "to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator" and to "establish a United Nations mechanism for speeding up the provision of humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza." In addition, the wording "an urgent suspension of hostilities" has been replaced with a call for "urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities."
Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing residents of border communities and taking people hostage. Israel started carrying out retaliatory strikes on the Palestinian enclave, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. On December 1, the Israeli army accused Hamas of violating a ceasefire that had taken effect on November 24 and resumed combat operations in Gaza.