Israel-Hamas war updates: UN chief invokes rare Article 99 over Gaza war
Antonio Guterres invokes Article 99 to force the UN Security Council to address unfolding ‘catastrophe’ in Gaza.
This live page is now closed. Follow along with our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war on our new page, here.
This live page is now closed. Follow along with our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war on our new page, here.
- In a rare move, UN Secretary-General Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, forcing the Security Council to address the Gaza war.
- Israeli army tanks move towards the centre of Khan Younis city after a night of non-stop artillery shelling and clashes around Gaza.
- Senior Hamas official says “no negotiations” with Israel unless it halts its Gaza offensive; Israeli leaders pledge to press on with the war.
- At least 16,248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll stands at about 1,200.
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For more context on the fighting, listen to our podcast examining Israel’s use of AI in its deadly assault on Gaza, here.
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Here’s what happened today
We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a recap of today’s main developments:
- Israel says its forces are operating in the “heart” of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, as increased fighting has continued to exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation.
- An Israeli attack in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza kills 22 members of Al Jazeera correspondent Momin Alshrafi’s family.
- For the first time since taking up his post, UN chief Guterres invokes Article 99 to force the Security Council to address the war in Gaza, warning it “may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.
- Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour appeals for action from the ICC, saying Israel has shown “the deepest contempt” for laws the court must protect.
- Israel approves “minimal supplement” to fuel deliveries to Gaza, saying it would allow in just enough to “prevent a humanitarian collapse”.
The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has no place on Australian campuses
In universities across the world, the definition of anti-Semitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) has been used to silence critical commentary on Israel’s human rights violations and war crimes.
In Australia, the definition has been having a chilling effect on campuses across the country.
Amid Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza, which has killed nearly 16,000 people, including more than 6,000 children, students and staff who have organised in solidarity with the Palestinian people have faced pressure and intimidation.
Read more about the situation in this opinion piece.
Israeli ultranationalist ministers protest flow of fuel to Gaza’s hospitals, water plants
After a delay of several hours, the [Israeli] security cabinet met and approved the war cabinet’s recommendation to allow fuel into the Gaza Strip.
But it didn’t come without any opposition.
Two ultranationalists, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the country’s national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, the country’s finance minister, were against this move, saying that Israel is now changing its red lines and that they are afraid this fuel will go into the hands of Hamas.
During the ceasefire period, there were 60,000 litres of fuel allowed into the Gaza Strip per day. The number will now be 120,000 – double that amount. Although it is still short of the amount that came at the request of the Americans, which is 180,000 litres per day.
The Israeli government and army alike are saying that this fuel will be used for hospitals, for water pumps and for desalination plants so that the spread of disease will not happen in the Gaza Strip because it could impact Israel’s military operation.
However, we do know that disease has already spread in the Gaza Strip.
WATCH: Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent’s family killed in Israeli attack
“Peace be upon you, good morning Momin. How are you? Hope you are well.”
These are some of the last words Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Momin Alshrafi heard from his mother, Amina, who was killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp alongside 21 other members of their family.
Watch more below.
UNICEF official on hidden danger of ‘safe zones’
James Elder, spokesman for the UN’s child relief agency, says that so-called safe zones in Gaza risk crowding thousands of people in inhumane conditions.
The Israeli military said on X on Monday that it was defining “safe areas” for civilians, but Al Jazeera correspondents and people on the ground say it is difficult to heed these orders.
Safe zones “risk being zones of disease and human suffering”, Elder said in an audio message posted to his X account.
“Currently in a shelter in Gaza, there’s around one toilet for 400 families. In these safe zones, there’ll be no toilet, and it’s tens of thousands of people,” he said. “For safe zones to be safe, they must, by law, have water, food, medical supplies and shelter.”
Elder stressed that for safe zones to provide protection, people need to be able to safely get to them. Throughout its war on Gaza, the Israeli army has repeatedly instructed Palestinians to evacuate to various areas of the Strip for their safety, only to later bomb those areas as well as evacuation routes. “Only a ceasefire can save the children of Gaza,” he said.
No water. No sanitation. No food. Just bombs. #Gaza pic.twitter.com/uffX8iM53r
— James Elder (@1james_elder) December 6, 2023
Israel approves new settlement in occupied East Jerusalem
Israeli authorities have approved the construction of more than 1,700 new homes, a nongovernmental organisation says.
Half the “new neighbourhood” comprising 1,738 housing units will be in the city’s annexed east, the Israeli NGO Peace Now said.
“If it weren’t for the [Gaza] war, there would be a lot of noise. It’s a highly problematic project for the continuity of a Palestinian state between the southern West Bank and East Jerusalem,” Peace Now’s Hagit Ofran told the AFP news agency.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday the plan by Israel is to “flood Jerusalem with settlements and settlers” and “separate it from its Palestinian surroundings”.
Israeli settlements in occupied territories are illegal under international law. In 2016, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Israeli settlement building, saying it has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”.
More Israeli raids in West Bank
We’re getting reports of Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad unit showed Israeli forces storming the town of Beita, south of Nablus.
The army also raided Nur Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarem. Israeli forces were seen in the vicinity of Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarem, as well.
‘All we do is count bodies’, Gaza health official says
Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Health Ministry in Gaza, says he has just lost a number of his relatives in an Israeli army attack.
“The Israeli occupation wants to kill hope, it wants to kill our youths, our children, and women,” he told the Palestinian news agency Shehab. Israeli forces “do not differentiate between a child and the elderly”.
Al-Bursh said 70 percent of those who lost their lives are women and children.
“Today, those wounded in Gaza die of bleeding … We cannot do anything for them,” he said. “They [Israeli forces] emptied hospitals of their supplies and left them as morgues to large numbers of bodies. All we do is count bodies.”
Invoking UN Charter’s Article 99 ‘a very important action’: Analyst
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s decision to use his most powerful diplomatic tool is a clear indication of the “urgency of the matter” in Gaza, Anthony Arend of Georgetown University tells Al Jazeera.
The rare move is “a very important action … to force a discussion” on the war in the Security Council, the university’s department of government chair said.
Arend acknowledged that even with the decision, Guterres still “cannot force the Security Council to adopt a resolution”.
“He can force a discussion, he can bring the parties together and encourage them to reach some kind of compromise. But because of the veto at the Security Council, the only way the Security Council can adopt a substantive resolution on this issue is for each of the five permanent members to choose not to veto it.”
He also conceded that it would be “very, very challenging” for the permanent members US, Russia, China, France and the UK to agree on a resolution.
“At the very least, the secretary-general would be able to bring up issues, present information, present data that needs to be presented, not just to the Security Council, but to the world as a whole,” Arend added.
Israel approves ‘minimal addition’ to fuel delivery to Gaza
Israel’s security cabinet has agreed to allow more fuel into Gaza “to prevent a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of disease”, while saying the additional amount would be “minimal”, according to the prime minister’s office.
In a statement, the office said the amount of additional fuel would be determined by the cabinet and adjusted based on humanitarian needs.
Israel had initially blocked any fuel delivery into the enclave, despite the dire need to power hospitals, water facilities and sewage pumps.
In mid-November, amid pressure from close allies including the US, Israel agreed to allow two fuel trucks into Gaza per day, with strict controls on the use of the fuel.
UN chief ‘compelled’ to act on Gaza crisis
UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric says it is the first time UN boss Antonio Guterres felt it necessary to invoke Article 99 since taking office in 2017.
The UN chief made the move “given the scale of the loss of human life in Gaza and Israel in such a short amount of time”, he said.
The use of Article 99 is a “dramatic constitutional move” that Guterres hoped would put more pressure on the Security Council – and the international community at large – to demand a ceasefire.
“I think it’s arguably the most important invocation. In my opinion, the most powerful tool that he has,” said Dujarric.
Still ‘very far’ from US changing staunch Israel support
Luciano Zaccara, a professor of Gulf Studies at Qatar University, says pressure is increasing “both inside and outside” of Israel for a clearer picture of the timeline of its military operations in Gaza.
He told Al Jazeera, however, that “the only one that can really push Israel to stop or to make a different decision is the United States”.
There have been some signs of incremental shifts, including more forceful language from US officials and the imposition of visa restrictions on Israeli settlers accused of violent attacks, Zaccara said.
But he added that Washington is “still very far” from reaching a breaking point that would lead to a wholesale shift in its support for Israel.
Guterres calls Jordanian, Egyptian FMs
According to statements from the foreign ministries of the two countries, the UN secretary-general discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and his request for the Security Council to work for a permanent ceasefire to end the killing of Palestinians.
Earlier, we reported that Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, in a rare action that allows the secretary-general to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.
“The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region,” he wrote in a letter to the Security Council.
Wounded Palestinians in north Gaza hospital ‘bleeding to death’
Ashraf al-Qudra, Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson, warns that the Ahli Arab Hospital has reached its full capacity as “large numbers” of injured people keep arriving at the facility.
Those who sustained wounds are “bleeding to death”, al-Qudra said.
Health officials are working on making parts of al-Shifa Hospital functional again, but he added: “We are facing great difficulties and need the support and protection of international institutions.”
Earlier, the Health Ministry said about 800,000 people in northern Gaza are now left without any form of medical care.
‘Someone find us a solution’
As Israeli forces move on Gaza’s second-largest city, one civilian there is demanding the international community act to save hundreds of thousands of trapped people.
“We are devastated, mentally overwhelmed,” said Khan Younis resident Amal Mahdi, who survived an overnight Israeli air strike. “We need someone to find us a solution so we can get out of this situation.”
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza – mostly women and children – and wounded more than 42,000 so far.
US has discussed Gaza war timeline with Israel: Official
“I will just say that we’ve talked through with them what they’re thinking in terms of the duration” of the war, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told Reuters news agency.
Sullivan added the US has spoken with Israel about how its military operation in Gaza “falls into a longer-term strategy for addressing this issue that goes beyond just military means”.
President Joe Biden said on Tuesday: “I’ve been working with a number of people in and out of government to figure, what after Gaza? I think the only available solution is a two-state solution.”
‘Hunger war has started’ in southern Gaza
Cut off from outside aid, people in UN-run shelters in Khan Younis are fighting over food, a displaced person says.
Nawraz Abu Libdeh, a shelter resident who has been displaced six times, said, “The hunger war has started”.
“This is the worst of all wars,” Abu Libdeh added.
A “total siege” on Gaza by Israel has resulted in only limited supplies of food, water, fuel and medicines entering since the war began.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier he expects “public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions” in Gaza – with “potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole”.
Palestinian UN envoy appeals for action from ICC
Riyad Mansour has addressed a session of the assembly of parties to the Rome Statute, which underpins the International Criminal Court.
“Israel has effectively destroyed every single requirement for life in the Gaza Strip while the entire world was watching, and it is still shelling neighbourhoods as we speak,” Mansour said.
“It has made of hospitals and UN shelters and mosques and churches its primary targets, and it has made of children, of the sick and the wounded, of the vulnerable, its primary victims. Why did we adopt the Rome Statute if not to protect these people?”
Mansour cautioned the ICC against employing “double standards”, stressing that Israel has shown “the deepest contempt” for laws the court must protect.
“If it fails to deliver justice to Palestinians now, when it still matters; if it fails to hold perpetrators accountable, those who are most responsible for the most serious crimes – the Israeli leaders – it will fail our people but also its sacred mission.”
‘New moral low’: Israeli UN ambassador again slams Guterres
Gilad Erdan has again struck out at the UN chief, this time responding to Guterres’s invocation of Article 99 of the UN Charter, which he used today to warn the Security Council that the war in Gaza “may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.
In a post on X, Erdan called Guterres’s move “more proof” of his “moral distortion and his bias against Israel”.
“The Secretary-General’s call for a ceasefire is actually a call to keep Hamas’s reign of terror in Gaza,” he said.
Erdan has led calls by Israeli officials for Guterres to resign. In his latest statement, he repeated the appeal, describing Guterres as a secretary-general “who acts according to the script written by Hamas”.
Belgium says it’s working on banning ‘extremist’ Israeli settlers
The country’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo says that Brussels will “work with the US on sanctions targeting individuals involved in actions that undermine peace, security and stability” in the occupied West Bank.
WATCH: How is Netanyahu’s handling of captives’ crisis seen in Israel?
In Israel the plight of the 138 captives held by Hamas dominates the political and news agenda.
Some relatives want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to quit because of his strategy, including relentless bombing of Gaza.
What do people in Israel think?
Red Crescent says it received 80 aid trucks
The Palestine Red Crescent Society says it received the trucks from its Egyptian counterpart through the Rafah border crossing.
The trucks, the organisation said, contained food, water, humanitarian aid, medicine and medical supplies.
Before the war, about 500 trucks entered Gaza from Egypt each day. Critics of Israel’s refusal to allow more humanitarian relief have called the amount getting through “a drop in the ocean” of need.
Iranian FM calls on Egypt to open Rafah crossing
“Today, the eyes of the women and children of Gaza look at the Rafah crossing, and they are without water, medicine, or food, and they are awaiting Egypt’s decisive decision in this regard,” Hossein Amirabdollahian said on X.
He added that Egypt is “expected” to open the Rafah border crossing to allow aid into the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, Al Jazeera spoke to a representative of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, who said that the humanitarian aid the organisation is receiving only meets “10 percent” of the need in Gaza.
Palestinian student shot in US state of Vermont discharged from hospital
Twenty-year-old Hisham Awartani, one of three Palestinian students who were shot two weeks ago, is paralysed from the chest down, his parents said.
They verified GoFundMe – a crowdfunding platform – set up by his family has raised more than $1m, but experts at the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation told them that the expenses of adaptive care throughout his life will come to at least $2.8m.