Palestinian patients rest under the open sky as they arrive in Rafah after they were evacuated from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis due to the Israeli ground operation on Saturday — Reuters GAZA STRIP, Feb 18 (AFP/Reuters): Prospects for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire dimmed Sunday after the United States signalled it would veto the latest push for a UN Security Council resolution and mediator Qatar acknowledged that truce talks on the other diplomatic front have hit an impasse.
The languishing efforts to pause the four-month-old war come as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Saturday to reject international appeals to spare Gaza's southernmost city Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million people have sought refuge.
Israel's relentless campaign to root out every Hamas battalion has edged closer to the city, with overnight attacks killing at least 10 Gazans there and in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah, according to a tally by official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also took about 250 people hostage, 130 of whom are still in Gaza, including 30 who are presumed dead, according to Israeli figures. Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
Neighbouring Egypt has grown increasingly wary that an Israeli invasion of Rafah could force the Gazans trapped there across the border. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday reiterated Egypt's opposition to any forced displacement into the Sinai desert.
In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, both leaders agreed instead on the "necessity of the swift advancement of a ceasefire," according to a summary.
Gaza's second-largest hospital
'completely out of service'
The Gaza Strip's second-largest hospital has been put "completely out of service", a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
"There are only four medical staffers currently caring for patients" inside the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, Ashraf al-Qidra told Reuters.
"The Nasser medical complex is the backbone of healthcare in southern Gaza Strip. Its ceasing to function is a death sentence for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian displaced people in Khan Younis and Rafah," he said.
Qidra said a lack of fuel and fighting around the facility had put it out of action.
Nasser was Gaza's largest functioning hospital until Sunday and had been under siege this week in Israel's war with Palestinian militant group Hamas. Israeli forces raided the hospital on Thursday.
UN likely to vote on Gaza
ceasefire, US signals veto
The United Nations Security Council is likely to vote on Tuesday on an Algerian push for the 15-member body to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, said diplomats, a move the United States signalled it would veto.
Algeria put forward an initial draft resolution more than two weeks ago. But US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield quickly said the text could jeopardise "sensitive negotiations" aimed at brokering a pause in the war.
Algeria requested on Saturday that the council vote on Tuesday, diplomats said. To be adopted, UN Security Council resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the United States, Britain, France, China or Russia.
"The United States does not support action on this draft resolution. Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted," Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement on Saturday.
Washington traditionally shields its ally Israel from UN action and has already twice vetoed council action since Oct 7. But it has also abstained twice, allowing the council to adopt resolutions that aimed to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza and called for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in fighting.
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