Algeria to propose UN action to ‘stop killing in Rafah’

Algeria will present a draft UN resolution calling for an end to “the killing” in Rafah as Israel attacks Hamas fighters in the crowded Gaza city, its ambassador said Tuesday after a Security Council meeting.

Defying pressure from the United States and other western countries, Israel has been conducting military operations in Rafah, which is packed with people who have fled fighting elsewhere in Gaza.

An Israeli strike Sunday killed 45 people at a tent camp for displaced people, said the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, drawing a chorus of international condemnation.

“It will be a short text, a decisive text, to stop the killing in Rafah,” Ambassador Amar Bendjama told reporters.

It was Algeria that requested Tuesday’s urgent meeting of the council after the Sunday strike.

A civil defense official in Gaza said another Israeli strike on a displacement camp west of Rafah on Tuesday killed at least 21 more people.

The Algerian ambassador did not say when he hoped the resolution might be put to a vote.

“We hope that it could be done as quickly as possible because life is in the balance,” said Chinese ambassador Fu Cong, expressing hope for a vote this week.

“It’s high time for this council to take action. This is a matter of life and death. This is a matter of emergency,” the French ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said before the council meeting.

The council has struggled to find a unified voice since the war broke out with the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, followed by Israel’s retaliatory campaign.

After passing two resolutions centered on the need for humanitarian aid to people in Gaza, in March the council passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire — an appeal that had been blocked several times before by the United States, Israel’s main ally.

Washington, increasingly frustrated with how Israel is waging the war and its mounting civilian death toll, finally allowed that resolution to pass by abstaining from voting.

But the White House said Tuesday that Israel’s offensive in Rafah had not amounted to the type of full-scale operation that would breach President Joe Biden’s “red lines,” and said it had no plans to change its policy toward Israel.

Asked about the new Algerian draft resolution, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “we’re waiting to see it and then we’ll react to it.”