UNSC Resolution and Israel's Wider War

A Win for Gaza?

The world witnessed a UNSC resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza being passed for the first time since Israel’s aggression against Gaza started.

• A total of 32,000 Gazans have been killed over the last 6 months, leading to a number of world leaders and protesters demanding for a ceasefire.
• The resolution calls for a ceasefire for the rest of Ramadan and for all the hostages to be released by Hamas. While this was accepted and passed by 14 different nations during the vote on Monday, The US abstained, arguing that “they did not agree with everything in the resolution” – Although they “critically support some of the objectives”. Stated by US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield
• The US position led to Netanyahu cancelling the visit of an Israeli delegation’s trip to D.C, claiming that the passing of this resolution and the US’s refusal to veto it hurts Israel’s war efforts in combatting Hamas.

Although the resolution passed, many are skeptical.

• The resolution only calls for a ceasefire until the end of Ramadan, which, from Monday, was only 2 weeks.
• The US ambassador also stated the resolution to be “non-binding”, despite the fact that it is quite the opposite.
• This has left many skeptical as to whether or not the US and Israel will fully comply (they usually don’t) with the UN’s resolution and whether or not it will hold any value at all.
• A total of 4 bills have been proposed in the past, with the US vetoing them all.
• This was also coupled with the fact that the International Court of Justice found Israel to be committing genocide against the Gazans, ordering them to stop.
• With the ICJ vocally stating that Israel’s actions were in par with Genocidal behavior and the UNSC now passing a ceasefire resolution, many worry that the state may have descended into a fascist abyss with no regard for human life or International Law.

• Netanyahu has approved new ceasefire talks after protests in Tel-Aviv, but the war machine signals no sign of stopping.

   

  Human toll: analysing the death rate

• Since the start of the conflict on October 7^th, a total of 32,400 Palestinians have been killed In the West Bank and Gaza, with close to 79,000 injured. A total of ~1,200 Israelis have been killed and 5,400+ injured.
• Despite the Israelis saying they target only Hamas’ infrastructure and that they do all they can to avoid civilian casualties it seems as if it is the civilians bearing most of the toll of Israel’s relentless bombing.
• Between October the 7^th and January, the 7^th, an average of 251 deaths were witnessed per day in Gaza alone.
• The Food Security Cluster say that humanitarian food assistance is only meeting 10% of the people’s weekly needs.

Over a million Gazans have also fled to Rafah, an area deliberately targeted by Israel, despite the ceasefire passing

Israel’s wider war: on Hezbollah

At the end of this week, Israel conducted strikes on Aleppo (Syria’s largest city) allegedly targeting Hezbollah (Iran proxy - see last week’s edition)  

An Israeli drone strike killed the Deputy commander of Hezbollah’s Rocket unit in Southern Lebanon

Also, UN military observers were struck by an Israeli drone strike in Southern Lebanon. A claim which the Israeli military deny.

Hezbollah 

The Lebanese Shiite “terror group” with deep links to Syria and Iran controls most of Southern Lebanon. As the war in Gaza continues Hezbollah has become increasingly angst and fired barrages of missiles at Israel during this period as well continuously exchanging gunfire with the Israelis at the border. Hezbollah has been at war with Israel before and its leaders would love to go to war again, but they are outmatched by Israel’s military capability. 

Yet Hezbollah is in no means “weak” with a stockpile of between 120,000 – 250,000 short range/long range guided missiles and precision rockets/drones’ courtesy of Iran. And approximately 30,000 trained fighters as opposed to the claims of secretary general/leaders claim of over 100,000 fighters.

The group is mostly funded by Iran in its proxy war against Israel and maintains strong links to the Assad Regime in Syria through which weapons from Iran flow.

Despite domestic problems in Lebanon such an ailing economy worsened by the lack of tourism called by these conflicts, Hezbollah popularity does not seem to have faltered much amongst Shiite Muslims (concentrated in the south) who represent approximately 33% of the Lebanese population (Majority) Compared to Sunni Muslims (32%) and Christian (31%). 

Christians remain persecuted in Lebanon with Hezbollah using Southern Christian villages as launch sites for firing rockets. Thus, Christians are fleeing from the area as the fear of war looms.