Israel continued to disregard rising requires a humanitarian cease-fire because it pounded Gaza with “significant” strikes Monday whereas claiming it has surrounded the besieged territory, splitting it in two.
Israeli troops and Hamas are engaged in house-to-house fight in densely populated Gaza, the place the battle has despatched 1.5 million folks fleeing to different components of the territory in a determined seek for cowl.
“This strike is like an earthquake,” Gaza City resident Alaa Abu Hasera mentioned, in a devastated space the place complete blocks had been diminished to rubble.
Israel launched an enormous bombing marketing campaign following the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion.
The Health Ministry in Gaza says greater than 9,770 folks, a lot of them ladies and kids, have been killed in Israeli strikes and the intensifying floor marketing campaign for the reason that battle started. Israeli casualties presently stand at round 1,550.
Israel has resisted requires a halt within the combating, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken touring the area calling for “pauses” whereas rejecting Arab international locations’ calls for for a cease-fire.
Israeli troops now encircle Gaza City, successfully splitting the territory in two, with “significant” strikes carried out, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari mentioned late Sunday.
Shortly earlier than the strikes, web and phone traces had been minimize, Hagari mentioned, including that the strikes would proceed within the days to return.
‘Enough is sufficient’
Israel has distributed leaflets and despatched textual content messages ordering Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to move south, however a U.S. official mentioned Saturday not less than 350,000 civilians stay within the worst-hit areas.
On Sunday, the Health Ministry mentioned 45 folks had been killed in Israeli strikes on a refugee camp in central Gaza, leaving folks looking out by the rubble.
“Are there any survivors?” shouted Said al-Najma, as he tried to shift the blocks of concrete strewn throughout the street within the camp.
“They brought down an entire street on the heads of women and children without any notice,” he mentioned.
Deepening the desperation within the crowded territory, the only real border crossing into Egypt was closed Sunday for a second day in a row, with Hamas suspending the evacuation of international passport holders after Israel refused to permit some wounded Palestinians to be evacuated.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirmed the closure, saying greater than 1,100 folks had been allowed out within the two days earlier.
As worldwide concern grows at mounting casualties, the heads of all main United Nations businesses issued a joint assertion expressing outrage on the civilian dying toll in Gaza and calling for an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire.”
“For almost a month, the world has been watching the unfolding situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in shock and horror at the spiraling numbers of lives lost and torn apart,” the U.N. chiefs mentioned, together with the heads of UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization.
“We need an immediate humanitarian cease-fire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now.”
The assertion got here as Blinken pressed a whirlwind Middle East tour centered on assist for the Palestinians, backing “humanitarian pauses” within the combating – in a visit that has taken him to Israel and the occupied West Bank, in addition to to Jordan, Iraq and Cyprus.
Blinken on Sunday went to the West Bank, the place Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denounced “the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel’s war machine,” the official Palestinian news company Wafa mentioned.
On Monday, Blinken holds robust talks in Türkiye in a bid to appease the anger of one among Washington’s most strategic however tough allies in regards to the bloodshed in Gaza.
NATO member Türkiye, which is allied to the Palestinians but additionally has ties with Israel, has mentioned it’s recalling its ambassador to Israel and breaking off contacts with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu unmoved
Netanyahu has remained agency on his place, vowing that “there won’t be a cease-fire until the hostages are returned.”
“Let them remove this from their lexicon. We are saying this to our enemies and to our friends,” the right-wing premier mentioned after assembly troops.
“We will simply continue until we win. We have no alternative.”
Jordan’s air power has air-dropped important medical provides to a subject hospital in Gaza, King Abdullah II mentioned Monday, including that it was his nation’s “duty to aid our brothers and sisters injured in the war on Gaza.”
Israel’s military mentioned it had “coordinated” with treaty ally Amman on the help drop.
The battle has exacerbated tensions within the West Bank, the place greater than 150 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces and settlers for the reason that begin of the battle, in response to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli army mentioned Monday it had arrested Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi, 22, in a raid in her West Bank city of Nabi Salih on suspicion of “inciting violence and terrorist activities.”
Tamimi turned distinguished at age 14 when she was filmed biting an Israeli soldier to stop him from arresting her youthful brother, who was pinned to the bottom whereas he had his arm in a solid.
She later turned an icon of the Palestinian trigger, and a big portrait of her was painted on the Israeli separation wall with the West Bank.
Source: www.dailysabah.com