In a decisive move on the 171st day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the UN Security Council passed a resolution on Monday that calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the region. The resolution aims to halt the ongoing violence and facilitate the release of hostages. However, the council did not approve a proposed amendment that sought to establish a "permanent ceasefire," leaving the long-term resolution of the conflict open-ended. The council stressed the urgent need to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the necessity of removing all obstacles to its delivery, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation continued its aggression, as the occupation forces arrested 500 Palestinians in the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, while the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the toll of the Israeli aggression had risen to 32,333 deaths and 74,694 injured since last October. For the eighth day in a row, the Israeli army continues to storm Al-Shifa Hospital, which housed thousands of patients and displaced people, and carries out a massive campaign of arrests and killings among the displaced, and bombs the homes surrounding the hospital, leaving hundreds dead and wounded. In the same context, the Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin said on Monday that the use of starvation as a weapon in the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. Martin said, in a post on his account on the X platform, that Israel's prevention of aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reaching northern Gaza is a moral violation and completely unacceptable. On the ground, the Israeli army said that various military units belonging to the 98th Division began a military operation in the Al-Amal neighbourhood, west of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, to continue to eliminate militants and dismantle the infrastructure of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). For its part, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that its members targeted an Israeli tank and a bulldozer with two shells, Al-Yassin 105, northeast of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Al-Qassam also announced that its fighters bombed Ashdod with a missile salvo in response to the targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, said that it bombed enemy concentrations in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Complex, west of Gaza City, with 60 mm mortar shells.
