DOHA, Dec 10, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Mediation efforts are continuing to secure a 
new Gaza ceasefire and free more hostages held by Hamas despite ongoing 
Israeli bombardment that is "narrowing the window" for a successful outcome, 
Qatar's prime minister said Sunday.

"Our efforts as the state of Qatar along with our partners are continuing. We 
are not going to give up," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the 
Doha Forum, adding that "the continuation of the bombardment is just 
narrowing this window for us".

Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group killed 1,200 people and 
took 240 hostages, according to Israeli figures, in an unprecedented attack 
on October 7.

The Israeli offensive has killed at least 17,700 people in Gaza, according to 
the Hamas-run health ministry, many of them women and children.

Qatar was a key mediator in negotiations that resulted in a seven-day truce, 
which saw scores of Israeli hostages exchanged for Palestinians prisoners and 
humanitarian aid, until it ended at the start of the month.

"We are going to continue, we are committed to have hostages released, but we 
are also committed to stop the war," Qatar's prime minister said.

But, he added, "we are not seeing the same willingness from both parties".

Addressing the Doha Forum earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said 
the Security Council was "paralysed by geostrategic divisions" that were 
undermining solutions to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The body's "authority and credibility were severely undermined" by its 
delayed response to the war, he said two days after a US veto prevented a 
resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire.

"I reiterated my appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared," he told 
the forum.

"Regrettably, the Security Council failed to do it," he added.

"I can promise, I will not give up."

Guterres had convened an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after 
two months of fighting in Gaza.

He deployed the rarely-used Article 99 of the United Nations Charter that 
allows the secretary-general to bring to the council's attention "any matter 
which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and 
security".

The rule had not been invoked by a UN chief in decades.

"We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system," 
Guterres told the Doha Forum.

"The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially 
irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and 
security in the region."