Earlier Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck two central Gaza refugee camps, killing at least 53 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush Hamas, despite US appeals for even brief pauses to get aid to desperate civilians.
Antony Blinken visits West Bank as fierce fighting roils Gaza
Antony Blinken visits West Bank as fierce fighting roils Gaza
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said more than 9,700 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in nearly a month of war, more than 4,000 of them children and minors. That toll likely will rise as Israeli troops advance into dense, urban neighbourhoods.
Air strikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp overnight, killing at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said. The camp is in the zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians to seek refuge.
An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, brought in after the strike. A surviving child was led down the corridor, her clothes caked in dust.
Arafat Abu Mashaia, who lives in the camp, said the Israeli air strike flattened several multi-story homes where people forced out of other parts of Gaza were sheltering.
“It was a true massacre,” he said. “All here are peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there were resistance (fighters) here.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Another air strike hit a house near a school at the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Staff at Al-Aqsa Hospital told AP at least 13 people were killed. The camp was struck on Thursday as well.
Despite appeals and overseas demonstrations, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas and accusing it of using civilians as human shields. Critics say Israel’s strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of civilians killed.
On the ground, Israeli forces in Gaza have reported finding stashes of weapons, at times including explosives, suicide drones and missiles.
Month of war changed everything as ‘Gaza has become a graveyard’: Al Quds
Month of war changed everything as ‘Gaza has become a graveyard’: Al Quds
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, a day after meeting Arab foreign ministers.
Abbas, who has had no authority in Gaza since Hamas took over in 2007, said the Palestinian Authority would only assume control of Gaza as part of a “comprehensive political solution” establishing an independent state that includes the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Israel seized in the 1967 war.
His remarks seemed to further narrow the already slim options for who would govern Gaza if Israel succeeds in toppling Hamas. The last peace talks with Israel broke down more than a decade ago, and Israel’s government is dominated by opponents of Palestinian statehood.
Blinken later visited Iraq to meet with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani about the need to prevent the conflict in Israel from spreading in the region, and about efforts to increase the flow of aid to Gaza, which Blinken called “grossly insufficient” at about 100 truckloads a day.
Earlier in his tour, Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Sunday reiterated that “there will be no ceasefire without the return of our abductees”.
Arab leaders have called for an immediate ceasefire. But Blinken said that “would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October”, when it launched a wide-ranging attack from Gaza into southern Israel, triggering the war.
As Gaza war rages, mother of child hostages is torn between hope and despair
As Gaza war rages, mother of child hostages is torn between hope and despair
Swathes of residential neighbourhoods in northern Gaza have been levelled in air strikes. The UN office for humanitarian affairs says more than half the remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, are sheltering in UN-run facilities.
Israeli planes again dropped leaflets urging people to head south during a four-hour window on Sunday. Crowds walked down Gaza’s main north-south highway carrying baggage or pets and pushing wheelchairs. Others led donkey carts.
One man said they had to walk 500 metres with their hands raised while passing Israeli troops. Another described seeing bodies along the road. “The children saw tanks for the first time. Oh world, have mercy on us,” said one Palestinian man who declined to give his name.
Israel’s military said a one-way corridor would continue for residents to flee to southern Gaza.
The UN said about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70 per cent of the population, have fled their homes. Food, water and the fuel needed for generators that power hospitals are running out. No fuel has come for nearly one month, the UN Palestinian refugee agency said.
The war has stoked wider tensions, with Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group trading fire along the border.
Four civilians were killed by an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon Sunday evening, including three children, a local civil defence official and state-run media reported.
The Israeli military said it had attacked Hezbollah targets in response to anti-tank fire that killed an Israeli civilian. Hezbollah said it fired Grad rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel in response.
In the occupied West Bank, at least two Palestinians were killed during an Israeli arrest raid in Abu Dis, just outside of Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The military said a militant who had set up an armed cell and fired at Israeli forces was killed.
At least 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war.
Many Israelis have called for Netanyahu to resign and for the return of roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas. Some families are travelling abroad to try to make sure the hostages aren’t forgotten.
Netanyahu has refused to take responsibility for the October 7 attack that killed more than 1,400 people. Ongoing Palestinian rocket fire has forced tens of thousands of people in Israel to leave their homes.
In another reflection of widespread anger, a junior government minister, Amihai Eliyahu, suggested in a radio interview that Israel could drop an atomic bomb on Gaza. He later called the remarks “metaphorical”. Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from cabinet meetings, a move with no practical effect.
The Israeli military said 29 of its soldiers have died during the ground operation.
Forensic archaeologists and others were still searching in southern Israel for remains of victims of the October 7 attack. Under Jewish religious tradition, body parts are to be kept together for a proper burial.
“We have to try and collect all the pieces, all the blood,” said Yitzchak Ben Shitrit, a salvage operator.