The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the recent escalating tensions between the Israeli-occupying regime and Palestinian resistance forces in the Gaza Strip.
The UNSC announced in a press release that it will gather at 3:00 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) to deliberate on “the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.”
The closed-door talks come as there have been heavy exchanges of fire, including rocket barrages and retaliatory attacks, by Palestinian resistance fighters against Israeli occupation forces and settlers in the occupied territories since Saturday.
More than 300 Israelis have died as a result of the large-scale operation — code-named Al-Aqsa Storm — and thousands of others have sustained injuries, hundreds of them in critical condition.
Leaders of the resistance front have praised the operation as a decisive answer to the Israeli regime’s unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.
Netanyahu declares ‘state of war’
Amid growing tensions, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a “state of war” in a post on his X account early on Sunday and warned of a response to the Palestinian reprisal attacks.
Netanyahu ordered a significant mobilization of the occupation’s reserve troops and initiated ground offensives against Palestinian forces near the besieged Gaza Strip.
Claiming that the regime’s forces had destroyed “most” of the Palestinian targets, Netanyahu said the offensive into Gaza would continue “without hesitation and without respite until the goals are achieved.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the regime would stop supplying electricity, fuel, and goods to the besieged Gaza Strip, much of which is already thrown into darkness by nightfall after electrical supplies were cut off by Tel Aviv.
The retaliatory operation by the Palestinian resistance groups on the occupied territories is the largest after the 11-day Israeli war against the Gaza Strip in May 2021, which took place after weeks of violence against Palestinians in Al-Quds and a brutal crackdown on worshipers at the al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as attempts to steal their land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
At least 260 Palestinians, including over 60 children, were killed during the Israeli offensive as the Gaza-based resistance movements retaliated. The regime was eventually forced to announce a ceasefire brokered by Egypt.
