US envoy to UN says blame for renewed Gaza fighting ‘lies solely with Hamas’
Dorothy Shea tells Security Council that ‘Trump has made clear Hamas must release the hostages immediately or pay a high price’; Guterres says UN will ‘not give up’ on ceasefire
The US envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council on Tuesday that blame for the resumption overnight of Israeli strikes in Gaza “lies solely with Hamas.”
Interim Ambassador Dorothy Shea said the terror group has “steadfastly refused every proposal and deadline they’ve been presented over the past few weeks, including a bridge proposal to extend the ceasefire beyond the holidays of Ramadan and Passover to allow time to negotiate a framework for a permanent ceasefire.”
Hamas insisted on sticking to the original terms of the deal, which was supposed to enter its second phase at the beginning of the month. That phase envisioned Israel fully withdrawing from Gaza and agreeing to permanently end the war in exchange for the release of the remaining living hostages.
While Israel signed on to the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu long insisted that Israel would not end the war until Hamas’s governing and military capabilities have been destroyed. Accordingly, Israel refused to hold serious talks regarding the terms of phase two, which were supposed to begin on February 3.
Instead, it pushed for an extension of phase one — which concluded on March 1 — through additional hostage releases. The US adopted this approach, and special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff’s bridge proposal sought to do just that. Witkoff said Sunday that Hamas’s response to the proposal — offering to release one living US-Israeli hostage and the body of four other dual citizens — was a non-starter.
In her address to a Security Council session on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Shea rejected the allegation that Israel is indiscriminately bombing Gazans.
“The IDF is striking Hamas positions. It is well known that Hamas continues to use civilian infrastructure as launching pads, and the United States condemns this practice, as should others,” she said.
“President Trump has made clear that Hamas must release the hostages immediately or pay a high price, and we support Israel in its next steps,” Shea added.
She asserted that Iran is behind all of the region’s instability, adding that countries in the Middle East “have a historic opportunity to reshape their region in a way that affords all its people a better path forward. Stronger ties between Israel and its neighbors offer an alternative.”
Also speaking to the Security Council session, UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs head Tom Fletcher lamented that residents of the Gaza Strip have been plunged into “abject fear” once again with the resumption of the Israeli airstrikes.
“Overnight our worst fears materialized. Airstrikes resumed across the entire Gaza Strip. Unconfirmed reports of hundreds of people killed… and once again, the people of Gaza [are] living in abject fear,” he told the UN Security Council in a video meeting.
More than 400 Palestinians were killed in the shock return to fighting, including children, according to unverified numbers from the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. More than 560 others were said to have been injured.
The IDF said Tuesday afternoon that it was hitting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets across the Gaza Strip. Targets hit included cells of terror operatives, rocket-launching positions, weapons, and other military infrastructure, the IDF and Shin Bet said in a joint statement. The weapons and infrastructure were to have been used by the terror groups in planned attacks on Israel, the military added.
The council meeting was called before the strike by several member states to discuss the humanitarian situation as Israel has blocked aid into the Gaza Strip since March 2, citing Hamas’s refusal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire.
“This total blockade of life-saving aid, basic commodities and commercial goods will have a disastrous impact on the people of Gaza who remain dependent on steady flow of assistance,” Fletcher said. “As Gaza is cut off — again — our ability to deliver assistance and basic services is becoming harder.”
Fletcher said that during the recent ceasefire, which went into effect on January 19, 4,000 aid trucks entered the territory each week, reaching more than 2 million people and more than 113,000 tents were distributed.
“This proves what’s possible when we’re allowed to do our job,” he added. “Humanitarian workers remain on the ground… ready to provide life-saving support to survivors and to carry out humanitarian operations. We must be allowed to do so.”
Since the cutoff on aid at the beginning of the month, he said, only medical evacuations and humanitarian staff rotations have been allowed, and “even that came to a halt today.”
Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that Gazans were being subjected to an “intolerable level of suffering” following the Israeli airstrikes effectively ending the ceasefire.
“Unfortunately, we are witnessing a situation in which we have an intolerable level of suffering for the Palestinian people, with the air raids that killed hundreds of people,” Guterres told reporters at the UN in Geneva. “We have humanitarian aid still blocked.”
Guterres said it was the role of the United Nations to have the international community pressing for three “essential” points to be followed by Israel and the Hamas terror group.
“First, for the ceasefire to be fully respected. Second, for humanitarian aid to have access to Gaza in an unimpeded way. And third, for the unconditional release of hostages,” said Guterres. “And we will not give up on these objectives.”
UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was horrified by the strikes.
“This will add tragedy onto tragedy,” he said in a statement.
“This nightmare must end immediately,” Turk said, adding that “the last 18 months of violence have made abundantly clear that there is no military path out of this crisis.”
Turk suggested that “the only way forward is a political settlement, in line with international law. Israel’s resort to yet more military force will only heap further misery upon a Palestinian population already suffering catastrophic conditions.”
The UN official added that “the hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally. All those arbitrarily detained must be released immediately and unconditionally. The war must end permanently.”
The Times of Israel Community.