UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly for Gaza ceasefire
The World Health Organisation says hospitals are in a state of 'utter chaos' and that rescue efforts are being hampered by Israel. ITV News Correspondent Rebecca Barry reports from Sderot
The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to demand a ceasefire in Gaza in a strong demonstration of global support to end the Israel-Hamas war.
The vote in the 193-member world body was 153 in favour, 10 against and 23 abstentions.
A similar vote on October 27 saw 120 vote in favour, showing global opinion is turning against Israel.
International calls for a ceasefire have left both Israel and its main ally, the United States, increasingly isolated.
The US is growing increasingly frustrated at its ally and has been sounding louder and louder signals in recent days for Israel to take more care to prevent civilian deaths.
On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden warned Israel was losing international support because of its "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza.
President Biden also renewed his warnings that Israel should not make the same mistakes of overreaction that the US did following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks.
After the US vetoed a vote on the Security Council on Friday demanding a humanitarian ceasefire, Arab and Islamic nations called for an emergency session of the 193-member General Assembly to vote on a resolution making the same demand.
Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding.
The resolution expresses "grave concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population," and it says Palestinians and Israelis must be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law.
It also demands that all parties comply with international humanitarian law, "notably with regard to the protection of civilians," and calls for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access.”
The resolution makes no mention of Hamas, whose militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted about 240 in the surprise attack inside Israel on October 7 that set off the war.
On the day of the vote, the World Health Organization warned hospitals in Gaza were in a state of "utter chaos" as fighting continued in the strip.
The UN humanitarian group said around 8,000 Palestinians need "urgent and immediate medical intervention" and that their rescue efforts are being hampered by Israeli checkpoints.
On Tuesday, Israel said it had found the bodies of two of the hostages, Eden Zakaria, 27, and Ziv Dado, 36, a soldier serving near the Gaza border, both taken during the October 7 raid.
More than 18,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 80% of the population of 2.3 million pushed from their homes.
The health care system and humanitarian aid operations have collapsed in large parts of the territory, and aid workers have warned of starvation and the spread of disease among people in overcrowded shelters and tent camps.
Overnight strikes in southern Gaza - in an area where civilians have been told to seek shelter - killed at least 23 people, including seven children and six women, according to The Associated Press.
In central Gaza, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah received the bodies of 33 people killed in strikes overnight, including 16 women and four children, according to hospital records.
Many were killed in strikes that hit residential buildings in the built-up Maghazi refugee camp.
In northern Gaza, Israeli forces stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital, ordering all men, including medics, into the courtyard, said Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
The UN humanitarian office said the hospital has 65 patients, including 12 children in intensive care and six newborns in incubators.
Some 3,000 displaced people are sheltering there, it said, all awaiting evacuation because of severe shortages of food, water and electricity.
The military says it is rounding up men in northern Gaza as it searches for Hamas fighters.
At another hospital in northern Gaza, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said a surgeon was wounded Monday by a shot fired from outside the facility, which it says has been under “total siege” by Israeli forces for a week.
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