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The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, compared this Sunday, in a press conference, the Israeli invasion of Gaza to the Holocaust.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has not happened at any other time in history.
In reality, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” he declared, arousing the indignation of Israel.
Meanwhile, Russia has invited Palestinian factions to meet in Moscow, Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said, adding that the organization was ready to interact with Hamas.
“Russia has invited all Palestinian factions that will meet on the 26th of this month in Moscow.
We will see if Hamas is willing to collaborate with us,” Shtayyeh said at the Munich Security Conference.
For his part, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, has urged the international community to resume funding to the agency of the organization for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), from which numerous countries withdrew its support after discovering the alleged involvement of some of its workers in the attack by Palestinian militias against Israel on October 7.
Grandi stressed that "UNRWA fulfills (in Gaza) an important task that cannot be assumed by anyone else."
The Israeli army continues its offensive in the south of the Strip.
In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirms his commitment to carrying out the ground offensive in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians take refuge.
Not entering Rafah, according to Netanyahu, would mean “losing the war.”
At the Al Naser hospital - in nearby Khan Yunis and where the Israeli army has been carrying out several operations, in which it claims to have detained more than a hundred members of the Palestinian militia - medical activity has ceased, the ministry has denounced. Red Crescent.
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The country
The United States anticipates its veto at the UN to a new ceasefire request
The United Nations Security Council will vote, expected on Tuesday, on a resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza, which the United States will veto, according to diplomatic sources.
More than two weeks ago, Algeria presented an initial draft resolution to consider the demand for an end to violence.
However, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, quickly said the text could jeopardize "sensitive negotiations" aimed at achieving a pause in the war.
Algeria requested this Saturday that the Council vote on Tuesday.
To be adopted, a UN Security Council resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no veto, which can be raised by the United States, Great Britain, France, China or Russia.
“The United States does not support action on this draft resolution.
If it is put to a vote as written, it will not be adopted,” Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement published on Saturday.
Washington traditionally protects its ally Israel from UN action and since October 7, has already vetoed Council action twice.
He has also abstained on two occasions, which allowed the adoption of resolutions seeking to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza and demand urgent and prolonged humanitarian pauses in the fighting.
Talks are currently underway between the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar for a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages.
“It is crucial to give this process the best chance of success, instead of promoting measures that jeopardize it, as well as the opportunity for a lasting resolution of hostilities,” added the US legation in the organization.
The council vote comes as Israel also plans to storm Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge, prompting international concern that such a move would dramatically worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“The situation in Gaza is a terrible indication of the stagnation in global relations,” lamented UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres from the Munich Security Conference.
It was a reference to the lack of unity in the Security Council, they later clarified: “And how that lack of unity has hindered our ability to improve situations around the world.”
(Reuters)
ACT.18 FEB 2024 - 18:52
The country
US strikes Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen
The United States has carried out five strikes in areas of Yemen controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, the US Central Command reported Sunday.
Thus, it has reported the impact of three mobile anti-ship cruise missiles, an unmanned underwater vehicle and an unmanned surface vehicle on Saturday.
“This is the first sighting of the use of a VUS by the Houthis since the attacks began on October 23,” CENTCOM published in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Central Command has stated that it had identified missiles and vehicles that posed an imminent threat to US ships and merchant vessels in the area.
The Houthis control the most populated parts of Yemen and say their attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinians, besieged by Israel since October 7, when Hamas carried out a brutal incursion.
Faced with growing violence around the Red Sea, major shipping lines have abandoned the trade route in favor of longer routes around Africa.
This has increased costs, fueling concerns about global inflation while depriving Egypt of crucial revenue from ships passing through the Suez Canal.
(Reuters)
ACT.18 FEB 2024 - 18:18
The country
Israel announces the defeat of “the Khan Yunis brigade” and that Hamas is seeking a replacement for its leader in Gaza
The Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, announced this Sunday that Israel has defeated the Khan Yunis battalion of Hamas after two and a half months of fighting in that southern Gaza city.
He has also added that the Islamist group is seeking a replacement for Yahya Sinwar, its leader within the enclave.
“Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade has been defeated and no longer functions as a military entity,” Gallant said after an assessment of the military situation with the head of the Southern Command of the Israel Defense Forces, Major General Yaron Finkelman.
(Efe)
ACT.18 FEB 2024 - 17:44
Naiara Galarraga GortázarSão Paulo
Expansion |
Lula compares the Israeli invasion of Gaza to the Holocaust
The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, compared this Sunday, in a press conference, the Israeli invasion of Gaza to the Holocaust.
"What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has not happened at any other time in history. In reality, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews," he declared in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), as shows the video of his appearance released by the Presidency of Brazil. President Lula has also said that the war in Gaza, in which some 29,000 Palestinians have died, "is not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It is a war between an army very prepared and women and children.” Lula is on an official trip to several African countries.
The Brazilian president made the comparison while criticizing “rich countries” that have suspended their contributions to UNRWA.
The president, who has announced an unquantified extra contribution to UNRWA, has defended the need to maintain aid while Israeli accusations against the UN agency are investigated.
For Lula, who has demanded a permanent ceasefire, in Gaza “a genocide is happening.”
The International Court of Justice, the UN's highest court, ordered Israel in late January to take all necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, including allowing the entry of more humanitarian aid.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Lula with a tweet and an announcement: “Comparing Israel to the Nazi Holocaust and Hitler is crossing a red line,” he wrote in Hebrew.
For Netanyahu, “this is about trivializing the Holocaust and trying to harm the Jewish people and Israel's right to defend itself.”
He has also announced that the Brazilian ambassador will be immediately summoned for "a reprimand conversation."
ACT.18 FEB 2024 - 17:13
The country
War between Israel and Gaza
Nobody stops Netanyahu
Andrea Rizzi (Special Envoy)
Throughout the weekend, the Munich Security Conference has been the theater of discreet dialogues and public messages from many political leaders about the conflict between Hamas and Israel and the destabilization of the Middle East.
In the Bavarian capital, a broad underlying consensus emerges about the necessary roadmap: ceasefire, release of hostages, entry of humanitarian aid in a first phase with, in parallel, implementation of a process that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian State with security guarantees for Israel and the normalization of its relations with the Arab countries.
These concepts have been repeated, with variations, by Arab, European, American or Asian leaders.
What is missing is, beyond words, the will or the ability to convince the two contenders to take that path and, especially, the one who holds a position of strength: the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
ACT.18 FEB 2024 - 16:35
The country
Lula compares the war in Gaza to the Holocaust
"What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments. In fact, it existed when Hitler decided to kill the Jews," Brazilian President Lula da Silva told reporters during the 37th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.
Israel responded this Sunday by accusing the president of trivializing the Holocaust and offending the Jewish people.
Israel's Foreign Ministry has announced that it would summon the Brazilian ambassador over the comments, described by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "disgraceful and serious."
"This is a trivialization of the Holocaust and an attempt to attack the Jewish people and Israel's right to self-defense. Comparing Israel to the Nazis and Hitler is crossing a red line," Netanyahu's office said.
(Reuters)
ACT.18 FEB 2024 - 15:54
The country
Gaza Health Ministry accuses Israel of taking Al Naser hospital out of service
The spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, Ashraf al Qudra, accused the Israeli army this Sunday of having taken out of service the Al Naser hospital, located in Khan Younis and considered the largest hospital center in the Palestinian enclave that was still in operation. .
"The Israeli occupation has turned the Naser medical complex into a military barracks and has left it out of service," Al Qudra said in a statement in which it also denounced that Israeli troops "held medical personnel for hours in the medical building." maternity hospital, where they were handcuffed, beaten and stripped naked.
According to Al Qudra, 70 medical staff were detained and only 25 remain in the medical complex;
“they cannot attend to cases that require specialized clinical care.”
Among the arrested doctors is the one who monitored patients admitted to the intensive care unit.
On Saturday, Israel announced that it had detained 100 people at the medical center suspected of "terrorist activities."
Al Qudra has assured that Israeli troops also detained “dozens of patients who were being treated on stretchers and could not move.” “They placed them on military stretchers, put them on trucks and took them to an unknown destination, putting their lives at risk. danger," said the spokesman for the Gaza ministry.
He also recalled that the Israeli siege - which lasted for 25 days - left the hospital without electricity for three days, which caused the interruption of the oxygen supply, which caused the death of seven patients.
“We fear the death of dozens of serious cases,” Al Qudra warned.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that "depriving patients of life-saving care and forcing the transfer of the sick and injured could lead to deterioration of their condition or even death," and has called for "urgent resumption." "the supply of fuel to the hospital so that it can function.
Israel stormed the Al Naser hospital on Thursday, alleging that Hamas was using its facilities and holding hostages there.
As evidence, he showed medications found in the hospital with the names of some kidnapped people.
One outlet, the N12 channel, has reported that at least some of these medicines had been sent to Hamas by relatives of the hostages as part of a private initiative.
(Efe)
ACT.18 FEB 2024 - 15:26