Israel launched new strikes on the Gaza Strip yesterday following a deadly attack on a UN school the previous day in the Palestinian enclave. Against this background, the war triggered by the attack of "Hamas" against Israel on October 7, entered its ninth month, BTA reported.
The conflict, which has already claimed several tens of thousands of lives, devastated large parts of the Gaza Strip and driven most of the Palestinian enclave's 2.4 million people from their homes, threatens to lead to famine.
Diplomatic efforts to end the hostilities appear to have stalled permanently, with the exception of a brief, week-long truce in November, despite a new road map to end the war announced a week ago by US President Joe Biden, notes AFP.
"Hamas" has yet to respond, and Israel has expressed readiness for talks but remains committed to its goal of destroying the Palestinian Islamist group.
As part of another round of diplomatic shuttles, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will visit Israel and key regional partners Egypt, Jordan and Qatar as part of a foreign policy tour starting on Monday, the US State Department said. It will be his eighth in the region since the start of the war.
On the ground, Israeli strikes on the territory of the enclave, which has been controlled by the radical Palestinian movement "Hamas" since 2007, continue.
Gaza came under shelling by land, sea and air yesterday, and eyewitnesses said the refugee camp in Nuseirat, central Gaza, was attacked again, a day after an Israeli strike hit a UN school there.
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According to a hospital in the neighboring city of Deir al-Balah, Thursday's bombing in Nuseirat killed at least 37 people. The Israeli army said the attack was carried out against "terrorists" who had taken refuge in three of the classrooms.
Against this background, in the Vatican, Pope Francis repeated a prayer for peace in the Middle East since 2014, the Associated Press reported.
In the Vatican Gardens, the Holy Father gathered the Israeli and Palestinian ambassadors to pray for an end to the war in Gaza. This happened on the tenth anniversary of the previous similar event, in which the Israeli and Palestinian presidents participated, making a joint appeal for peace.
"I pray every day that this war will finally end," Francis told the small audience of attendees, which included about 25 Roman Catholic cardinals and representatives of the Holy See's diplomatic corps.
Among them were Israeli Ambassador Raphael Schutz and Palestinian Ambassador Isa Cassisia, as well as representatives of the Muslim and Jewish communities in Italy.
And then, as now, US-sponsored peace talks had stalled. But Francis told the two presidents, then-Israeli Shimon Peres and Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, that he hoped their meeting would mark the beginning of a "new path" to peace. Both then and now, Francis pointed out that too many children had died in the war and called on both sides for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages and their return to Israel.
Israel sharply criticized its inclusion in an annual UN report on children in armed conflict zones, DPA reported.
"Today the UN added itself to the blacklist of history when it ranked among those who support the killers of "Hamas", said on the social network "X" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is the most moral army in the world; and no delusional UN decision will change that fact."
Earlier, Israel's Permanent Representative to the World Organization, Gilad Erdan, announced that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had added Israel to the global “list of shame” of perpetrators of crimes against children during conflict, reported Reuters and AFP.
The diplomat said he was officially notified yesterday of the decision, which he described as “shameful”, and that he was “amazed and disgusted”. “It is an immoral decision that helps terrorism and rewards “Hamas”. The only one blacklisted today is the Secretary General. Shame!“, declared Erdan.
The global list is included in a report on children and armed conflict, which is expected to be presented to the UN Security Council on June 14.
The world organization defended itself against the accusations. For about a quarter of a century, the Secretary General has been compiling such a report annually at the request of member states, and the very initiative for it comes from the Security Council, said a UN spokesman at the organization's headquarters in New York.
The report is produced based on a "established and transparent methodology" and once it is published, it is up to member states to read it and take action, the spokesman added. But the document does not have any direct consequences, DPA notes.