GAZA: The United States has circulated for the first time a draft UN resolution calling for an “immediate” ceasefire in the Zionist entity’s genocidal war in Gaza, as warnings grow of famine in the besieged territory. Washington had blocked previous Security Council texts using the word “immediate” but US top diplomat Antony Blinken confirmed the shift in position on Wednesday.

Blinken, who met five Arab foreign ministers in Egypt on Thursday, stressed any immediate truce must be linked to the release of captives taken by Palestinian fighters on Oct 7. The Zionist bombardment of Gaza continued overnight with the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory saying at least 70 people had been killed, pushing the overall toll towards 32,000.

“We were sleeping safely when we heard a big blast,” Gaza resident Mahmud Abu Arar told AFP following Zionist bombardment in the southern city of Rafah on Wednesday. He said the blast was “like an earthquake” and he had pulled bodies from the rubble. Gaza’s biggest hospital has emerged as a major flashpoint after the Zionist entity accused Palestinian militants of hiding out there and launched a days-long raid, which it said on Thursday had killed more than 140 fighters.

Hamas accused Zionist troops of crimes at the vast Al-Shifa hospital complex, crowded with patients and people seeking refuge, including “executions of dozens of displaced persons, patients and staff”. Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has largely collapsed and UN agencies are warning that the territory’s 2.4 million people are on the brink of famine. The United States has vetoed previous UN Security Council texts on the nearly six-month war, objecting even last month to the term “immediate” in a draft submitted by Algeria.

A new version circulated by the US and seen by AFP stressed “the need for an immediate and durable ceasefire” to protect civilians and allow aid into the territory. No vote has been scheduled on the text but Blinken told Saudi media outlet Al Hadath on Wednesday that support for the resolution would send a “strong message”. The US secretary of state, whose diplomatic push is running alongside mediation efforts in Qatar, will land in the Zionist entity on Friday.

The Qatar talks were considering a Hamas proposal for a six-week ceasefire to allow hostages to be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners held by the Zionist entity and increased aid deliveries. But a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said the Zionist entity’s response had been “largely negative” and called it “a step backwards”.

The US and the Zionist entity are also engaged in a diplomatic tug-of-war over the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the last part of the territory still largely untouched by Zionist ground troops. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled to the city to escape fighting elsewhere, but Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted a ground incursion is the only way to finally root out Hamas.

US officials said they supported Netanyahu’s goal but wanted the Zionist entity to try strategies short of a potentially catastrophic invasion of an area where around 1.5 million people are hemmed in by the Egyptian border. The Zionist entity’s offensive has killed 31,988 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Tensions have also flared in the occupied West Bank, where Zionist troops and settlers have killed at least 437 Palestinians since the Gaza war began. The Zionist military killed four Palestinians during a predawn raid on a refugee camp near Tulkarem, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Two of the four Palestinians were killed by an air strike and two by live bullets, the Red Crescent said. In total, eight Palestinians were killed in less than 24 hours in the West Bank. Three Palestinians were killed late Wednesday in a Zionist strike on a car in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the northern West Bank. One Palestinian was killed by gunfire in the Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah.

The Saudi government announced it would donate $40 million to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which has been central to aid operations in Gaza. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini warned this week that “siege, hunger and diseases will soon become the main killer in Gaza”. – Agencies