Israel-Hamas war: UN Security Council delays Gaza aid vote

The Israeli military said troops located "a vast tunnel network" under Gaza City that included command and control positions, meeting rooms, and hideout apartments for the most senior leaders of
Hamas, including Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the tunnels ran from properties registered in the names of senior Hamas figures.

Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said on Wednesday that the rooms were 20 meters (60 feet) underground with elevators, stairs, separate water and electricity shafts, and with water, food, weapons
and communications equipment stored for a prolonged stay.

The military said the complex was centered on Palestine Square in central Gaza City, under stores, government offices, and civilian apartment buildings.

Hamas has long boasted that its tunnel network is hundreds of kilometers long. Some shafts are to 80 meters deep and were described by one freed hostage as "a spider's web."

The militant Islamist group Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the European Union.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that engaging in counter-terrorism operations cannot mean leveling Gaza to the ground.

"As the weeks go by, we cannot allow the idea to take hold that fighting effectively against terrorism would mean razing everything in Gaza or indiscriminately attacking civilian populations and causing civilian victims," he said in comments to broadcaster France 5.

He called for a truce that would "lead to a cease-fire for humanitarian purposes," while stressing that Paris recognizes "Israel's right to defend itself" and "to fight terrorism."

Macron told Israel to "stop" its current retaliation "because it is not suitable," saying "all lives are equal and we defend them."

He said France's position was "coherent" and "just," saying it was "not playing favors with either camp" but rather seeking a position in keeping with its "diplomatic history." 

The United Nations Security Council vote on opening up humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip has been delayed for the third day in a row.

On Wednesday, the US' Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, requested the postponement to allow for US talks with Egypt, which borders the Gaza Strip.

"The Security Council has agreed to continue negotiations today to allow for additional time for diplomacy. And the presidency will reschedule the adoption for tomorrow [Thursday] morning," said Ecuador's Ambassador to the UN, Jose Javier De La Gasca Lopez-Dominguez. Ecuador currently holds the council's rotating presidency.

An afternoon Security Council session discussing Afghanistan, the second half of which was formerly scheduled by the UN to discuss Gaza and other Middle East issues, concluded having only discussed Afghanistan.

The resolution, led by the United Arab Emirates, is likely to call for some kind of reduction in the scale of fighting in Gaza and for more aid deliveries. 

Its precise wording has been hotly disputed as the UAE seeks a formulation that's likely to meet approval from all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Council. The United States, one such member, has vetoed two resolutions on the conflict since October 7.

Also on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington was working "intensely" with partners on reaching an agreement on the exact wording for a resolution.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that Washington has been engaging in "very good faith" with other countries over a draft resolution in the UN Security Council on the conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip.

"We've been working this intensely. I've been on the phones about this for the last couple of days," Blinken said.

"I hope we can get to a good place," he said.

The latest version of the UAE-led draft resolution does not use the word "cease-fire" and calls for humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip.

"The purpose of the resolution as stated by the countries that put it forward is to facilitate and help expand humanitarian assistance that's getting into Gaza. And we fully support that," Blinken said.

"We want to make sure that the resolution in what it calls for and requires actually advances that effort and doesn't do anything that could actually hurt the delivery of humanitarian assistance, make it more complicated," he said.

Germany's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that an Israeli soldier with German citizenship has died in the war against Hamas.

"We have been informed by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) that unfortunately a German citizen is among the victims of the fighting in Gaza," the ministry said.

According to Israeli media, the soldier was seriously injured last week during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip and died a few days later in hospital.

The German embassy in Tel Aviv is in contact with his relatives.

The Hamas government's media office in the Gaza Strip says that at least 20,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian enclave since the October 7 attack on Israel.

It said that some 8,000 children and 6,200 women were among those killed.

Gaza's Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties. Israel sometimes questions the trustworthiness of the figures, given Hamas' influence over Gaza's Health Ministry, but the UN and other observers have said the figures proved generally reliable in the past.

Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Israel and others.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin flew out to the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday.

He met with sailors who had been instructed to stay at sea to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from escalating into a more deadly regional conflict.

Austin has extended the carrier deployment three times, hoping its presence would make Iran and Iran-aligned groups think twice before joining the fight against Israel.

"Sometimes our greatest achievements are the bad things that we stop from happening," Austin told military personnel. 

"And at a moment of huge tensions in the region, you all have been the lynchpin to preventing a wider regional conflict," he added.

The USS Gerald R. Ford was one of two carriers the US deployed to the region in the wake of the terror attacks by Hamas militants on Israel on October 7. 

The other, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, leads a strike group that has now reportedly moved into the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, to deter Houthi rebel attacks on commercial ships sailing through the Red Sea. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it had delivered food into Gaza through the Israeli Kerem Shalom border crossing on Wednesday in the first direct aid convoy from Jordan.

"This could pave the way for more sustained and scaled-up access to reach more families," the WFP said.

Israel announced on Sunday that aid trucks would be permitted to enter Gaza directly from Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing for the first time since the fighting began in October.

The Rafah border crossing from Egypt to Gaza previously provided limited access to humanitarian organizations. 

The WFP said a 46-truck convoy brought 750 metric tons of food assistance to Gaza. 

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian who the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) said was attempting to ram a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

They said the driver of a car had been "neutralized" at the Bayt Inun junction, north of the city of Hebron. The crossing had been closed following the October 7 Hamas terror attack.

The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the 27-year-old man was dead.

According to the ministry, 290 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel on October 7. 

Two-thirds of jobs in Gaza, amounting to over 192,000 positions, have been lost since October 7, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) reported on Wednesday.

"The economic, social, and development impact also has grave cascading implications for the labor market, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank," ILO Regional Director for Arab States Ruba Jaradat said.

The occupied West Bank also experienced a 32% employment decline, equivalent to 276,000 jobs.

Total job losses in the Palestinian territories reached 468,000 by November 30, surpassing earlier estimates.

The ILO and PCBS project the unemployment rate in Palestinian territories to increase from 24% in the 4th quarter of 2022 to a staggering 46.1% in the fourth quarter of 2023, which will "compound the already devastating humanitarian and economic situation, especially in Gaza."

"The escalation of hostilities in Gaza not only exacerbates pre-existing challenges but has led to a profound destruction of all aspects of life in the Strip, rendering it essentially uninhabitable," the organizations note in their report. 

Communication and internet services in the Gaza Strip were cut off again on Wednesday, Paltel said.

The Palestinian telecom company said in a social media statement the services are down due to the "ongoing aggression."

Internet watchdog Netblocks confirmed the "collapse in connectivity" in the strip, saying it had a high impact on "areas in the south where telecoms had been partially restored over the last few days, while other areas have remained offline since the previous blackout."

Since the beginning of the war, communication networks in the sealed-off coastal area have failed several times.

Aid groups had previously warned that prolonged communication blackouts make it challenging to coordinate the delivery of aid or to secure safety assurances from Israeli forces that are needed for aid supplies and staff to move throughout the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it carried out attacks on 300 targets in Gaza involving air, ground and naval forces in the past day.

Residents of Gaza's second-biggest city, Khan Younis, reported fierce gunbattles on the streets between Israeli troops and Hamas militants on Wednesday. 

Smoke was also rising over Khan Younis after Israeli strikes.

On Tuesday, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told French news agency AFP that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were expanding operations there.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said operations in southern Gaza would take "months."

"We will not stop until we reach our goals," he was quoted by the Associate Press news agency as saying.

Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry says 19,667 people have been killed in the territory since the start of the war. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths but said most of the victims were women and children.

Israel's military says 131 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive.

Israel carried out preemptive air strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, the Israeli military said.

Israeli fighter jets attacked "terrorist infrastructures alongside military sites " used by Hezbollah, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said.

Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed Shiite political party and militant group, and its armed wing is classified as a terrorist organization by some countries, including the European Union and the United States.

There have been almost daily exchanges of fire between the IDF and Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border since Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel on October 7.

British Foreign Minister David Cameron is expected to travel to Jordan and Egypt this week to try and broker a deal that will allow a "sustainable cease-fire" and further humanitarian pauses in Gaza, his office said on Wednesday.

He will be accompanied by Britain's Minister of State for the Middle East Tariq Ahmad and they will "progress efforts to secure the release of all hostages, step up aid to Gaza and end Hamas rocket attacks and threats against Israel."

Cameron is set to meet his counterpart Ayman Safadi in Jordan. He has also planned a visit to the Egypt-Gaza border, where he will review the state of the UK aid being sent to Gaza.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for talks on the war, said the Islamist militant group that is considered a terrorist organization by several countries. 

Haniyeh was expected to lead a "high-level" delegation to Egypt for talks with Qatar's spy chief and others on "stopping the aggression and the war to prepare an agreement for the release of prisoners", a source close to the group told the AFP news agency.

Separately, the Reuters news agency reported, citing an unnamed source, that "intensive" Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated talks were underway for a possible truce and hostage deal.