Midnight update

Good evening,

It’s just past midnight in Gaza, and here is your latest round-up on an eventful evening on the global stage as countries voted on whether to call for a ceasefire.

Late on Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for “extended humanitarian pauses” after weeks of debates on whether to call for a ceasefire or not.

This resolution is the first one passed by the UN Security Council since Hamas launched its attacks on 7 October, which killed 1,200 Israelis and saw over 200 taken as hostages. The subsequent Israeli retaliation on Gaza has killed more than 11,000 people over the last five weeks.

Twelve countries voted for the resolution, with three countries, Britain, Russia and the United States, abstaining on the motion.

Elsewhere, in the United Kingdom, British members of Parliament voted against a proposal which supported a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Scottish Nationalist Party proposed an amendment to the King’s Speech, which called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Parliamentarians voted down this amendment.

But despite voting down the proposal, the vote forced MPs loyal to Labour leader Keir Starmer to break ranks and vote for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Twelve Labour Party MPs resigned from the party’s front bench to vote for a ceasefire. The most senior Labour rebel to defy Labour leader Keri Starmer was Jess Phillips, who represents a Birmingham constituency with a sizeable Muslim population.

In Gaza, Israel claimed to have found weapons belonging to Hamas in the al-Shifa hospital after Israeli forces stormed the medical facility in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Hamas denied the claims, with Palestinian medics in al-Shifah saying Israeli soldiers had retreated to the outskirts of the hospital after interrogating its medical staff and arresting several technicians who helped run critical equipment.