American leaders Joe Biden and Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu are due to speak by phone this Thursday, three days after an Israeli strike killed foreign aid workers in Gaza. “President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak tomorrow,” an American official told AFP on Wednesday evening, confirming press information.
The death in an Israeli strike on Monday of seven humanitarian workers from the NGO World Central Kitchen based in the United States and supplying the starving Gazan population, further increased American discontent. Joe Biden was publicly “outraged” by this strike and considered that Israel was not doing “enough” to protect volunteers coming to the aid of the civilian population in Gaza.
Information to remember
⇒ Iran’s supreme leader says Israel ‘will be slapped’ for Syria strikes
⇒ Spanish Prime Minister criticizes Israeli government
⇒ Polish Foreign Ministry summons Israeli ambassador
Iran’s supreme leader says Israel ‘will be slapped’ for Syria strikes
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Israel would be “slapped” after airstrikes on the consular annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, which killed seven people on Monday. Revolutionary Guards.
“The defeat of the Zionist regime in Gaza will continue and this regime will be close to decline and dissolution,” said Mr. Khamenei in a speech delivered in Tehran to an audience of Iranian officials. “Desperate efforts like those they made in Syria will not save them from defeat. Of course, they will also be slapped for this action,” he warned.
Humanitarians killed in Gaza: Sánchez criticizes Netanyahu’s response
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez harshly criticized the Israeli government on Wednesday, describing its explanations for the death on Monday of seven employees of a humanitarian NGO, World Central Kitchen, in the Gaza Strip as “insufficient” and “absolutely unacceptable.”
“The first statements made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on what happened in Gaza concerning the NGO of (chef) José Andrés (Editor’s note: World Central Kitchen) do not seem sufficient to me,” said Pedro Sánchez, speaking at a press conference in Doha at the end of a tour of three countries in the region.
Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged on Tuesday that Israel was responsible for the deaths of these seven people, calling it an “unintentional” strike and describing the “incident” as “tragic”. “It happens in a war,” he added, pledging to do “everything to ensure that it never happens again.” Pedro Sanchez also confirmed that Spain would proceed “as soon as possible” with the recognition of a Palestinian state, without however indicating a date.
Humanitarians killed in Gaza: Warsaw summons Israeli ambassador
The Polish Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that it had “invited” the Israeli ambassador to Poland to discuss “moral, political and financial responsibility” after the Israeli strike which killed seven humanitarian workers in Gaza, including a Pole. “I invited the ambassador […] I want to talk to him about the new situation in Polish-Israeli relations and about moral, political and financial responsibility for the incident that recently occurred in Gaza,” Deputy Minister Andrzej Szajna was quoted as saying by the agency. PAP.
In Gaza, a situation “worse than catastrophic”, warns a UN representative
Returning from a week-long mission to the Gaza Strip at the end of March, Dominic Allen, representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), warns of the cruel lack of medicines, the difficulties of access and distribution for help in an interview with AFP. “I think the situation is worse than catastrophic. What I saw really broke my heart. Gaza has become a pile of dust. The people we met were emaciated, they told us that they were looking for what to eat,” Dominic Allen said.
“We are very worried about pregnant and breastfeeding women. Doctors and midwives have told us that their patients are giving birth to smaller children, and that malnutrition, dehydration and fear are leading to complications,” he said. -he continued.
UN membership: Palestinians hope for a vote on April 18
In a letter sent Tuesday to the UN Secretary-General and the Security Council, the Palestinians revived a 2011 request to become a full member of the UN. “We hope that the Security Council meeting at the ministerial level on April 18 will act on this basis,” Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday, referring to a planned meeting on the situation in Gaza on this date.
“We want admission. It is our natural and legal right,” he added, believing that given the number of countries supporting them, this accession should be “easy”. “Everyone is talking about the two-state solution, so what is the logic in preventing us from being a member state?” he said, in response to the possibility of an American veto.
Human Rights Council to consider call to stop arms sales to Israel
The UN Human Rights Council will consider a draft resolution on Friday calling for a halt to arms sales to Israel. If the text were adopted, it would be the first position taken by the Human Rights Council on the conflict which has raged since October 7. The draft resolution distributed Wednesday condemns “the use of starvation as a method of warfare in Gaza” and calls on Israel “to respect its legal responsibility to prevent genocide.” It was submitted by Pakistan on behalf of 55 of the 56 UN member states in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), except Albania. And it is co-sponsored by Bolivia, Cuba and the Palestinian Authority.
Pressure also increased on Wednesday on the British government to review arms sales to Israel after the death in Gaza of seven humanitarian workers, including three British, which angered London. According to a January report from humanitarian organizations, many of the weapons used by Israel in Gaza in its war against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas contain parts from the United Kingdom.