CRIME NEWS JOURNAL: GAZA' Palestine: UN Secirity Council Calls For Immediate Ceasefire

31 Jul 2014

Belfast: Gaza Conflict Depicted By Falls Road Mural

STREET ARTISTS IN Belfast have added a new mural to the walls of the Falls Road.

Rendered in a stark black, grey and red colour-scheme – the artwork calls for the “immediate expulsion of all Israeli diplomats from Éire”.

These photos, taken yesterday by PA’s Brian Lawless, show the mural painted on the background of a 15ft high Palestinian flag, in an area synonymous with the city’s Catholic community.

Speaking in Belfast yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said he was “actively engaged at the diplomatic level with both the Israelis and the Palestinians”.

He added:

I believe that every effort must be made to ensure the cessation of hostilities and the bringing of the parties together to discuss a medium and long-term solution to what is a most difficult problem on the world stage.

Flanagan is due to address the Seanad on the crisis today, as the upper house is recalled to debate events in Gaza and Ukraine.

Criticism

The recently-appointed Minister has come in for criticism in the last few weeks over the Government’s stance on the issue, including from his own backbenchers.

Last Friday, he defended the decision to abstain from a vote on a UN resolution that sought to investigate Israel’s military actions in Gaza — saying the motion should have called for violent acts on all sides to be investigated.

Israeli Ambassador to Ireland Boaz Modai has been called to meetings with Flanagan a number of times since the conflict began earlier this month — most recently last week, when Flanagan told him of “my own deep disquiet and the grave concerns of the Irish Government and people” at the escalation of violence.

Over 100 people were killed in Gaza yesterday, according to its health ministry — bringing the overall death toll among Palestinians to 1,336. Most of them have been civilians.

58 Israelis have been killed to date, 56 of whom were soldiers.

28 Jul 2014

GAZA, Palestine: UN Security Council Calls For Immediate Ceasefire: *NEW UPDATE

More than 1,030 Palestinians have died in the fighting as well as 43 Israeli soldiers

The United Nations Security Council has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza to allow for urgent aid to reach civilians as the conflict between Israel and Hamas enters its third week.

The 15-member council released a statement this morning calling for the truce during the Muslim Eid festival marking the end of Ramadan.

The council expressed "strong support" for an "immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire", and urged all sides to accept and fully implement the truce.

It voiced "grave concern regarding the deterioration in the situation as a result of the crisis related to Gaza and the loss of civilian lives and casualties."

More than 1,030 Palestinians have died in the fighting as well as 43 Israeli soldiers.

LINK: No Place To Hide For Children Of Gaza War:
www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28513709 &
www.irishexaminer.com/world/video-channel-4s-jon-snow-speaks-about-his-recent-trip-to-gaza-276984.html

Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, expressed disappointment with the statement, saying it fell short of a formal resolution demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from Gaza.

"They should have adopted a resolution a long time ago to condemn this aggression and to call for this aggression to be stopped immediately," said Mr Mansour following the meeting.

"We are disappointed in that sense," he said, adding that the Palestinians would continue pressing the Security Council to move toward a formal binding resolution.

The emergency session came after Israel and Hamas ignored calls for a truce, with Israel pounding Gaza with artillery yesterday after a night of rocket fire from Hamas.

The two sides observed a 12-hour pause on Saturday, allowing Gaza medics to pull bodies from rubble.

The Council said "civilian and humanitarian facilities, including those of the UN, must be respected and protected" following outrage over the Israeli attack on a UN-run school in Gaza this week that left 15 dead.

The Council called on Israel and Hamas to try to reach a ceasefire based on the Egyptian initiative, and applauded US Secretary John Kerry's efforts to broker a deal.
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NEW UPDATE: *Three children were among 10 people killed in fresh Israeli raids across Gaza tonight, according to emergency services.

Five people, including three children, were killed when a tank shell slammed into a house in the northern town of Jabaliya, spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP

Another person died in a strike on central Gaza, and four more were killed in and around the southern city of Khan Yunis, he added.

Earlier today, exchanges of fire killed eight Palestinian children in a Gaza refugee camp.

The missile that slammed into a public playground in the seafront Shati UN refugee camp also killed at least two other people and wounded another 46, many of them also children, the emergency services said.

The scene at the Shati refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, earlier today.

Tonight’s strikes came as Israel began an intensive bombardment of the battered Palestinian enclave after four soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on southern Israel and a fifth died in fighting in southern Gaza, the army said.

“Over the course of the day, 5 IDF soldiers were killed,” a statement said, indicating that four of them “were killed along the border of the Gaza Strip as a result of mortar fire”.

Their deaths raised to 48 the total number of Israeli soldiers killed since July 17 when troops began the ground phase of a major military operation against Gaza militants.

The overall operation began on July 8, and has so far killed a total of 48 soldiers and three civilians — two Israelis and a Thai farm worker.

More than 1,050 Palestinians have been killed and over 6,200 wounded.

United Nations figures show more than three quarters of the victims were civilians — among them more than 230 children and around 120 women.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged an immediate end to the ongoing violence, saying earlier that the area was in a “critical condition”.

“In the name of humanity, the violence must stop,” he told reporters in New York, after returning from a visit to the region.

Includes reporting from AFP.

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Keywords: gaza, israel, united nations