World

WARSAW — When heads of state and senior officials from some 90 countries gather in Switzerland this weekend to discuss Kyiv's proposed plan to end the war in Ukraine, it will be largely due to one person: Volodymyr Zelensky.

The former TV comedian won widespread respect and drew comparisons with Winston Churchill when he stayed in Kyiv in February 2022 to lead his country in a David-versus-Goliath battle against the invading Russian army.

Two years later with tens of thousands of lives lost despite billions of dollars of Western aid and donated military equipment, the charismatic president has embarked on a months-long drive to charm, coerce, plead and threaten some of the most powerful people in the world into turning up at his flagship peace summit in a Swiss mountainside resort.

That dozens will be there — many from the Global South — at a time when Ukraine is on the backfoot militarily, and with talk of war fatigue growing, is an impressive feat.

The dignitaries are coming despite Russia — which began the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022 — not being invited.

"It's rather remarkable that there's 100 countries showing up to a peace summit at which the main instigator of that conflict is not participating," said Max Bergmann, a former US State Department official.

"It's a diplomatic masterstroke," Bergmann, who now heads the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said.

William Courtney, a former US diplomat, called it a "huge success", saying: "I can't think of any other middle power, like a Saudi Arabia or Brazil, that have done anything comparable."

Zelensky has made corralling world leaders to attend the June 15-16 forum one of the key tasks this year.

And he has hit the skies to push the message in person, visiting 16 countries in 2024, including stops in the Middle East and Asia.

The day before a G7 meeting in Italy, where Zelensky will speak, he was in Saudi Arabia, Russia’s key energy ally.

He also visited Singapore, the Philippines and Qatar this month, following a whistlestop tour of European capitals.

Charm and coerce

At meetings with presidents and prime ministers, in addresses to parliaments and conferences, he has lavished praise on his hosts.

“I am grateful to President [Emmanuel] Macron for always striving to find the best solution to protect us and the entire Europe. I appreciate the bravery of his decisions and France’s leadership,” he said after a meeting with Macron at D-Day commemorations in Normandy.

He has also not shied away from taking a harder message at times.

“If there is no representative of your state, this is a public response that when you say ‘we all want peace’, no, you want Russia to win,” Zelensky said in an interview with AFP in May.

That public show of frustration has extended to calling out US President Joe Biden, Kyiv’s most important backer, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who he accused of enabling Russia’s invasion after weeks of outreach failed to secure Chinese attendance.

“If he is not present, it will be just like applauding Putin: personally applauding and doing so standing,” Zelensky said about Biden’s participation in the Swiss summit.

Those efforts proved unsuccessful, with Washington to be represented by Vice President Kamala Harris.

For some, there have been diplomatic missteps in the run-up to the summit.

“Ukraine’s impatience ... has sometimes rubbed other capitals the wrong way,” said Alissa de Carbonnel, deputy programme director for Europe at Crisis Group.

Zelensky has also been “less successful” in getting countries outside of Kyiv’s traditional backers to more forcefully support Ukraine’s position, said Simon Smith, a former British ambassador to Ukraine.

“I don’t think this is a failure of his diplomatic style,” Smith told AFP.

“It’s just harder for him to persuade other countries to share his outrage at what Russia is doing, when those countries do not perceive themselves as threatened by Russia.”

‘Magnetism’

The summit will also be a show of how Zelensky’s diplomacy has evolved since the start of the war.

For Courtney, he has become more “skilful” on the world stage, notably travelling more regularly to drum up support for Ukraine and press the flesh in key capitals.

But while Zelesnky has lent on his pulling power to bring in the delegations, “he has lost some of his magnetism that he had in 2022”, said Bergmann.

“There’s an air of perhaps over-exposure. Everybody’s heard the lines and heard the message, repeated again and again ... it reduces some of the novelty,” Bergmann said.

For the man himself, the very fact the gathering is taking place is a “positive” result.

Whether he can secure more than just a high turnout is a key test, especially among non-Western countries so far happy to tread a path between Moscow and Kyiv.

“Zelensky can still achieve a lot. Contacts with heads of states matter,” said Orysia Lutsevych, head of Chatham House’s Ukraine Forum.

But “positions will be changing depending on the situation on the battlefield”, she added.

“Countries tend to back the winner and so far they are not sure who will win.”

ROME — A brawl in the Italian parliament over the far-right government’s plans to grant regions more autonomy has triggered uproar, with some comparing the punch-up to the days of fascism.

The fight broke out on Wednesday evening after Five Star Movement (MS5) Deputy Leonardo Donno tried to tie an Italian flag around the neck of regional affairs minister Roberto Calderoli of the pro-autonomy Northern League.

Donno’s stunt was intended to denounce plans to grant more autonomy from Rome to those regions that want it. Critics argue that it undermines Italy’s unity.

In response, Calderoli’s fellow League deputies left their benches en masse to mob Donno, and the debate descended into a free-for-all involving some 20 men.

Donno, injured in the scuffles, had to be evacuated in a wheelchair before being sent to hospital.

The brawl provoked a torrent of reactions from political leaders and made the front pages of the Italian newspapers. Many criticised the example set by the elected representatives.

“The squadrist right is fighting in parliament,” the newspaper La Repubblica lamented, using a term used to describe the post-World War I paramilitary forces that went on to become fascist leader Benito Mussolini’s infamous Blackshirts.

Italy’s leading daily Corriere della Sera said the house had turned into a “boxing ring”.

Lawmakers from the League and the Brothers of Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, accused Donno of provoking the incident and even faking his injuries.

The M5S denounced a “serious and shameful attack” and called for immediate measures.

“Violence comes from the benches of the Meloni majority... Shame,” its leader, Giuseppe Conte, wrote on social media network X.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani acknowledged that lawmakers should hold themselves to a higher standard, telling Sky TG24 that politicians “have to set a completely different example“.

The chamber is not a boxing ring... it’s not fisticuffs that solve political problems.”

Critics say that the autonomy proposal will result in public services being cut back in the poorest regions.

The scenes in parliament are by no means unprecedented.

In 2021, deputies from the Brothers of Italy — which has post-fascist roots — mobbed the centre of chamber to interrupt a debate on the COVID-19 health pass.

PARIS — French right-wing parties were mired in infighting on Thursday as campaigning intensified for snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron, while his government faces a more unified challenge from the left.

Macron’s gamble on early elections comes two years after he failed to secure a majority in parliament to buttress his second presidential term. It risks strengthening the far-right National Rally (RN) and has sparked a meltdown among traditional conservatives.

Eric Ciotti of the mainstream Republicans party announced a surprise alliance with the RN this week, which prompted the rest of the leadership to vote him out Wednesday.

But Ciotti insisted on Thursday that he was still party leader, dismissing the effort to oust him as “quibbles, little battles by mediocre people... who understand nothing about what’s going on in the country”, adding that it was legally void.

“I’m president of the party, I’m going to my office and that’s it,” Ciotti told reporters as he arrived at Republicans headquarters in Paris. He called his opponents’ vote a “takeover” attempt and said he was challenging its validity in court.

A Paris court is set to examine the case on Friday morning, a judicial source said.

Viral images had spread on social media the day before of Paris region president Valerie Pecresse rolling up her sleeves as she approached the Republicans Party headquarters closed by Ciotti in an apparent bid to prevent the party’s political committee from meeting to oust him.

But some on the right remain open to the RN.

Francois-Xavier Bellamy, the party’s lead candidate in Sunday’s European Parliament vote, said he would “of course” vote for an RN candidate over the left in a second-round run-off.

“I’ll do everything to prevent France Unbowed [LFI] coming to power,” Bellamy told broadcaster Europe 1, referring to the hard-left group that has struck an alliance with other left-leaning parties.

Call to protest

The lightning election campaign, with the first round of voting on June 30, has also split the RN’s smaller far-right rival Reconquest over whether to ally with the heavyweight formation.

Marion Marechal, who led Reconquest’s European Parliament list, was excluded from the party after she called for an alliance with the RN — whose leading figure Marine Le Pen is her aunt.

While smaller outfits fight amongst themselves, Le Pen’s RN appears set to cruise to a massively increased parliamentary presence from its current 88 out of 577 seats.

The party “will come out on top of the election with the largest parliamentary group but short of an absolute majority,” University College London political scientist Philippe Marliere said.

Several trade unions and associations called for street protests against the far right, with police saying they expected 50,000 to 100,000 protesters in Paris on Saturday.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told France Inter radio that voters faced a “societal choice”.

Macron’s centrist camp offers a “progressive, pro-work, democratic” alternative, he said.

‘Seismic change’

Macron’s camp has dubbed itself Together for the Republic, a senior member told AFP on Thursday after a strategy meeting with Attal and chiefs of allied parties.

Their message will be, “do you want [RN president] Jordan Bardella or [LFI founder] Jean-Luc Melenchon” as prime minister, a source close to Attal said.

Left-wing leaders, meanwhile, were debating issues including who might be prime minister if their alliance comes out on top. LFI’s repeat presidential candidate Melenchon and senior MP Francois Ruffin have thrown their hats in the ring.

Along with LFI, the Socialist, Communist and Green parties said in a joint statement they had agreed on a plan for how to form a government under the name of the New Popular Front.

“We have succeeded. A page of history is being written,” Socialist leader Olivier Faure said on X.

Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, said that France was undergoing “seismic political change”, describing the new legislative elections as the most momentous of the country’s post-war history.

“The early opinion polls are dominated by the radical, anti-European, nationalist-populist Lepennist right and a left led by the radical, anti-European, anti-capitalist LFI,” he said in a report.

BERLIN — Weeks of relentless Russian strikes against power plants and infrastructure in Ukraine have been compared to an “energy war” by operators who have seen their networks wiped out.

“We never expected that 90 per cent of our generation capacity can be destroyed in 11 weeks,” the head of Ukraine’s largest private energy operator DTEK, Maxim Timchenko, told AFP.

Many of the company’s plants are burnt out and beyond repair after weeks of intense Russian strikes that have cut Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity in half.

The fight to protect energy infrastructure was “comparable with the military frontline” in Russia’s war in Ukraine, Timchenko told AFP.

“If they destroy completely our energy infrastructure, it will be so difficult to have any success,” Timchenko said on the sidelines of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Germany.

How to quickly boost Ukraine’s energy supplies and protect the network from future attacks was high on the agenda for Kyiv’s backers at the gathering, held over on Tuesday and Wednesday in Berlin.

Depriving Ukraine of electricity was “psychologically a form of warfare”, Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told AFP at the Berlin conference.

“It is extremely difficult for a population to have to live for days without light and without heating,” said Steiner, whose organisation has sent hundreds of generators to Ukraine.

Blackouts

Russian strikes against energy infrastructure have gained in intensity in recent weeks and left residents across Ukraine without power.

Ukrainian state power operator Ukrenergo said on Tuesday it would have to extend scheduled outages to manage meagre supplies of electricity.

“Due to extensive damage, Ukrainian power plants cannot produce as much electricity as before the attacks,” the company said.

Speaking at the conference, President Volodymyr Zelensky made a plea to boost Ukraine’s defences against the attacks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to “hone the practice of destroying energy facilities”, Zelensky said.

Providing Ukraine with more air defence systems to ward off missiles fired by Moscow was “the answer” to halt Russian advances on the ground, he said.

Aerial cover provided a vital shield for Ukraine to rebuild the power grid and keep energy flowing to households and businesses, Timchenko said.

“All these repairs will be just a waste of money and time, if we don’t protect our power stations from air strikes.”

DTEK has seen first hand what can happen without better protection, Timchenko noted. One of its plants was fixed up in March, only to be struck again three weeks later and destroyed completely.

‘Absolute priority’

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy operator, is aiming to rebuild 50 per cent of its thermal energy generation capacity by winter, when temperatures drop and demand increases.

DTEK has reached out to other energy providers in Europe to source spare parts, such as transformers and generators, for its plants.

But the damage is sometimes simply too large to be repaired quickly.

“If there is a strong fire in the power unit... we are not even going to restore it in one year,” said Timchenko.

At the aid conference, the European Union said it would back loans to businesses worth over 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to speed reconstruction of infrastructure and encourage renewables projects.

Solar or wind projects, whose dimensions make them more resistant to missile attacks, were a part of the solution, Timchenko said.

“This is basically the future of our energy sector,” he said.

But the company’s “absolute priority is not to let people stay without electricity,” he added.

“It’s all about energy security. We shouldn’t select what technology to restore, what not. We need to restore everything possible in Ukraine.”

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said he was seeking an alliance against political extremes in snap elections, adding he aimed to keep the far right from succeeding him in 2027 when he steps down.

Macron was speaking at a rare domestic news conference three days after the far right upended his presidency and spurred him to call risky early polls by recording more than double the score of his ruling party in European elections.

A landmark realignment of French politics now appears to be in progress, with the leader of the main right-wing party backing an alliance with the far right, triggering warfare within his own group.

With little chance of overtaking the far-right National Rally (RN) in the campaign for the two-round election on June 30 and July 7, Macron's best chance appears to be to build a broad-based centrist coalition appealing to the moderate left and right.

"I hope that when the time comes, men and women of goodwill who will have been able to say no to the extremes will come together... will put themselves in a position to build a shared, sincere project that is useful to the country," Macron told journalists.

"The answer, in my eyes, could not come through changing the government or a coalition... dissolving parliament was necessary," Macron said.

'Respond to their anger'

Macron, who must stand down in 2027 after serving the maximum two terms, said one reason he had called the snap polls was to prevent the RN under Marine Le Pen winning the presidency in 2027.

"I do not want to give the keys to power to the far-right in 2027," he told reporters.

He took full responsibility for seeking to clarify matters by calling the election, he added.

Counting the RN, other far-right parties and the hard left, he said that some 50 per cent of the French had voted for "extremes" in the European elections.

“You can’t tell them [the French]: ‘We’re continuing as if nothing had happened’. That’s not respecting them, that’s not listening to them,” he said.

“I want there to be a government that can act to respond to their anger, to their urgent demands.”

Macron’s forces face an uphill struggle to reverse their fortunes. The first polls show a picture little changed from the EU elections, with a far-right majority in the national assembly not excluded.

It will be Prime Minister Gabriel Attal who will lead the campaign rather than Macron, with some party figures wanting the president to keep a relatively low profile in the campaign due to his unpopularity.

Macron acknowledged voters’ “difficulty getting by even when they’re working, very everyday difficulties” that had created “anger, sometimes resentment”.

People “feel that they aren’t listened to or respected... We can’t remain indifferent to all these messages”, he added.

‘Pact with devil’

But he also lashed out at conservative Republicans (LR), whose leader Eric Ciotti on Tuesday announced an alliance with the RN, as well as a left-wing alliance including the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).

The right had “in a few hours turned its back on the legacy of General [Charles] de Gaulle” — as well as former presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, who come from the same political family.

Ciotti had sealed a “pact with the devil”, Macron said, adding that the “masks were being removed”.

Ciotti’s move also sparked a mass revolt within the LR, with party grandees at an emergency meeting on Wednesday unanimously voting to oust him.

LR lawmaker Annie Genevard said afterwards the party would present the French public with candidates in all “independence” for the upcoming polls.

Ciotti, who earlier closed down party headquarters to force them to find another venue, claimed the decision was void and on X said he remained LR president.

At the same time, mainstream left-wing parties have allied with an LFI that Macron accused of “anti-Semitism” over its response to Palestinian militant group Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and the war in Gaza.

Voters had a choice between “unholy alliances at the two extremes who agree on almost nothing except handing out jobs” versus his own bloc with “a single vision of the country” both at home and abroad, Macron said.

BERLIN — German far-right and left-wing nationalist lawmakers boycotted a parliamentary address on Tuesday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who earlier had warned that pro-Russian rhetoric posed a growing danger to EU nations.

Zelensky’s speech came at the start of a diplomatic whirlwind tour to shore up support for Kyiv’s battle against Russia.

In an illustration of the increasing headwind Kyiv faces to obtain backing, MPs from Germany’s far-right AfD and far-left BSW parties boycotted Zelensky’s address to parliament.

Both parties made huge gains in Sunday’s European elections, with the AfD scoring higher than all three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, while the BSW, a newcomer which campaigned against weapon deliveries to Ukraine, took just over 6 per cent.

Zelensky cautioned that the parties’ stance posed a threat that stretched beyond Ukraine.

“It seems to me that the most important thing is that people did not choose pro-Russian populist rhetoric. But radical pro-Russian rhetoric is dangerous for your countries,” Zelensky warned, speaking at a press conference before his parliament address.

The co-leaders of the AfD said they “refused to listen to a speaker wearing camouflage fatigues”.

“Ukraine does not need a war president now, it needs a peace president who is ready to negotiate,” said Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, adding that AfD MPs had therefore decided to leave their seats empty at the Bundestag on Tuesday.

Not only in Germany but across the EU, the far-right’s gains have triggered fears over the future of Western backing for Ukraine.

Ahead of a peace conference for Ukraine in Switzerland, to which Russia is not invited, parties like the AfD are pushing the message that the West’s current strategy to arm Ukraine will not bring an end to hostilities.

But Scholz, speaking at a Ukraine reconstruction conference in Berlin, vowed not to let up support for Kyiv.

He urged allies to rush air defence systems to Ukraine to help the country fend off Russia’s missiles, and said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be allowed to win the war.

“There will be no military victory and no dictated peace,” Scholz said, adding that Putin must “end his brutal campaign and withdraw his troops”.

Zelensky also pleaded for help.

“Russia’s greatest strategic advantage over Ukraine is superiority in the sky. It is missile and bomb terror that helps Russian troops advance on the ground,” Zelensky said, adding that “air defence is the answer”.

Germany has contributed three Patriot air defence systems to Kyiv, while Zelensky said a total of seven Patriots are needed for Ukraine to shield its urban centres from the storm of Russian missiles.

Later Tuesday Zelensky visited a military training area in Sanitz, northern Germany, where Ukrainian troops are trained on the Patriot systems, along with German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.

Pistorius promised Ukraine a further 100 Patriot missiles — which he described as a “significant number” — as well as additional sniper rifles, anti-tank weapons and drones.

The minister added that he had seen during visits to Ukraine “how crucial air defence is for survival”.

Air attacks 

After almost a year of stalemate, Ukraine has been forced to abandon dozens of frontline settlements this spring, with Russian troops holding a significant advantage in manpower and resources.

Russia on Tuesday said it had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine: Timkovka in the north-eastern Kharkiv region and Miasozharivka, calling it by its Russian name of Artemovka, in the eastern Lugansk region.

Ukrainian prosecutors meanwhile said five people had been wounded in an overnight Russian strike on the frontline town of Kostyantynivka.

With the war at a critical juncture, Zelensky is ramping up a diplomatic offensive for support.

After Berlin, Zelensky will head to the G7 summit in southern Italy, which will be attended by leaders including US President Joe Biden.

G7 leaders hope to agree a deal on using the profits from the interest on 300 billion euros ($325 billion) of frozen Russian central bank assets to help Kyiv.

Swiss peace summit 

After the G7 meeting, Zelensky will head to Switzerland for the peace summit from Saturday, to be attended by representatives from some 90 countries and international organisations.

Organised at Ukraine’s request, the summit’s outcome remains uncertain, though Switzerland is hoping to secure a joint final declaration.

However Biden is skipping the summit, with Vice President Kamala Harris attending instead, in a blow to Zelensky who had pushed for the US president to participate.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said it would not participate in any negotiations if Kyiv does not accept Moscow’s annexation of the approximately 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory Russia currently occupies.

Moscow’s key ally China will also be absent from the conference.

WILMINGTON, United States — A jury found Hunter Biden guilty on Tuesday of federal gun charges in a historic first criminal prosecution of the child of a sitting US president.

The 54-year-old son of President Joe Biden was convicted on all three of the felony counts stemming from his 2018 purchase of a handgun while addicted to crack cocaine.

The verdict comes as his father is seeking reelection, and the Democratic president changed his schedule to fly to Wilmington, Delaware, the family hometown where the trial was held.

Hunter Biden was waiting on the tarmac when Marine One landed at Delaware Air National Guard Base and he was given a warm hug by his 81-year-old father before they left in a motorcade.

The president expressed his “love and support” for his son in a statement released immediately after the conviction.

“I am the president, but I am also a dad,” Biden said.

“So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery.

“I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.”

The 12-member jury deliberated for about three hours over two days before reaching a verdict.

Hunter Biden did not take the stand during the one-week trial, which First Lady Jill Biden attended several days.

He could face up to 25 years in prison, although as a first-time offender jail time is unlikely. A date was not set for sentencing but it is expected to take place in the next few months.

Special counsel David Weiss, who brought the case against Hunter Biden, addressed reporters following the verdict.

“No one in this country is above the law,” Weiss said. “Everyone must be accountable for their actions, even this defendant.”

Weiss said the case was “not just about addiction”.

“This case was about the illegal choices the defendant made while in the throes of addiction, his choice to lie on a government form when he bought a gun, and the choice to then possess that gun,” Weiss said.

Drug addiction 

The trial outcome comes less than two weeks after the conviction on business fraud charges of Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s likely Republican opponent in the November presidential election.

The proceedings, along with another case in which Hunter Biden faces tax evasion charges in California, have complicated Democrats’ efforts to keep the election focus on Trump, the first former president convicted of a crime.

In addition to being a political distraction, Hunter Biden’s legal woes have reopened painful emotional wounds for the family from his time as a drug addict.

His brother Beau died from cancer in 2015, and his sister Naomi died as an infant in a 1972 car crash that also killed their mother, Neilia, Joe Biden’s first wife.

The Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist was charged with falsely stating when buying a .38 caliber revolver in 2018 that he was not using drugs illegally.

He was also charged with illegal possession of the firearm, which he had for just 11 days in October of that year.

The president’s son, who has written unsparingly about his addiction, claimed that at the time he bought the revolver he did not consider himself to be an addict.

He has long been the target of hard-right Republicans, and Trump allies have investigated him at length in Congress on allegations of corruption and influence-peddling. No charges have ever been brought.

Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and Ukraine have also formed the basis for attempts by Republican lawmakers to initiate impeachment proceedings against his father. Those efforts too have gone nowhere.

The Trump campaign referenced the unsubstantiated allegations against the Biden family in a reaction to Hunter Biden’s conviction.

“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.

The White House has said there would be no presidential pardon for Hunter Biden.

UNITED NATIONS, United States — The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a US-drafted resolution supporting a ceasefire plan in Gaza, as Washington leads an intense diplomatic campaign to push Hamas to accept the proposal.

The text, passed with 14 votes in favor and Russia abstaining, "welcomes" the truce and hostage release proposal announced on May 31 by President Joe Biden, and urges "parties to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.

The resolution says Israel has accepted the truce plan, and "calls upon Hamas to also accept it."

Hamas said Monday that it "welcomes" the vote.

The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, has been widely criticized for having blocked several previous UN draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

But Biden late last month launched a new US effort to secure a truce and hostage release.

"Today we voted for peace," US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the UN session.

"Today this Council sent a clear message to Hamas: accept the ceasefire deal on the table. Israel has already agreed to this deal and the fighting could stop today if Hamas would do the same."

However the deal remains uncertain as Hamas officials have insisted that any ceasefire agreement must guarantee a permanent end to the war -- a demand Israel has firmly rejected, vowing to destroy Hamas and free the remaining captives.

Under the proposal, Israel would withdraw from Gaza population centers and Hamas would free the hostages. The ceasefire would last an initial six weeks, with it extended as negotiators seek a permanent end to hostilities.

Following two resolutions focused on humanitarian aid, the Security Council finally at the end of March demanded an "immediate ceasefire" for the duration of Ramadan, after the United States abstained from the vote.

The first phase of the truce would see an "immediate, full and complete ceasefire," the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and the "withdrawal of Israeli forces from the populated areas in Gaza."

This would also allow the "safe and effective distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout the Gaza Strip to all Palestinian civilians who need it."