Israel escalates Gaza attacks as Netanyahu defies int’l calls for cease-fire
Israel intensified assaults on Gaza on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected global demand for a humanitarian cease-fire, declaring “this is a time for war”. Israeli troops and Hamas fighters engaged on Tuesday in “fierce battles” in Gaza, where the dire humanitarian crisis spiraled and tearful Palestinian families scoured rubble in a desperate search for loved ones.
Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza, driving tanks and armored bulldozers through the rubble of shattered buildings, in what Israel claims is scouring for Hamas fighters who carried out a large-scale attack on October 7 that saw 1,400 people dead and 230 others captured.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 8,525 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory, including at least 3,542 children and 2,187 women, as Israel pressed on with its air and ground campaign in the Gaza Strip.
As Israel stepped up its relentless bombing of Gaza, desperate Palestinian families scrabbled through debris searching for survivors and mourned over the bodies of some of the thousands killed, draped in white shrouds.
‘Scale of horror is hard to convey’
Major UN agencies are calling for a humanitarian cease-fire to allow deliveries of aid for more than two million civilians trapped with scarce supplies of food, water and medical equipment, and also for the safe release of 230 prisoners.
The entire population of Gaza is “being dehumanized,” the chief of the main UN agency operating there told the UN Security Council on Monday, as pressure intensified on the besieged strip with Netanyahu ruling out the cease-fire, saying that while the Bible says there is a time for peace, “this is a time for war.”
“Calls for a cease-fire or calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas … that will not happen,” he said.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) told the Security Council that thousands of children killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in the past three weeks “cannot be collateral damage.”
“An immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions,” Lazzarini said.
The director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Lisa Doughten, told the Security Council that the “scale of the horror” being experienced by Gazans is “hard to convey.”
“We simply do not have enough essential supplies to provide for the survival of internally displaced people at this scale,” Doughten said.
800,000 have fled south
Israel said its troops attacked underground compounds on Tuesday with a focus on northern Gaza. An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south, even though Israeli airstrikes have pounded the entirety of the besieged enclave.
More than half the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, with hundreds of thousands sheltering in packed UN-run schools-turned-shelters, or in hospitals alongside thousands of wounded patients. Israeli strikes have hit closer to several northern hospitals in recent days, alarming medics. The UNRWA says nearly 672,000 Palestinians are sheltering in its schools and other facilities – four times their capacity. Thousands of people broke into its aid warehouses over the weekend to take food, as supplies of basic goods have dwindled because of the Israeli siege.
There has been no central electricity in Gaza for weeks, and Israel has barred the entry of fuel needed to power emergency generators for hospitals and homes.
Children’s casualty toll
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said that the toll includes over 3,400 children killed, and more than 6,300 injured. “This means that more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day – a number which should shake each of us to our core,” she said.
Lazzarini said: “This surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.” And he stressed, “This cannot be ‘collateral damage.’”
64 of UN staff killed in Gaza
UNRWA, on which hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza rely for basic services even in normal times, said 64 of its staff have been killed since the start of the war, including a man killed alongside his wife and eight children in a strike late Monday.
“This is the highest number ever of UN aid workers killed in any conflict around the world in such a short time,” spokesperson Juliette Touma told the Associated Press. “UNRWA will never be the same without these
colleagues.”
Norway: Israel breaks int’l law
Meanwhile, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide on Tuesday criticized Israel for breaking international law in its bombardment of Gaza that has leveled neighborhoods and killed thousands of Palestinians.
The foreign minister told Reuters in an interview that while Oslo supports Israel’s right to self-defense, humanitarian law must be adhered to.
This meant distinguishing between combatants and civilians and ensuring military attacks are proportionate to avoid excessive harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure, he said.
“We believe that there have been cases where this proportionality and this distinction have not been fully respected,” he said, speaking in the UAE.
In Oslo, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said it was crucial to get relief to civilians in Gaza as soon as possible.
“It is paramount now to have a humanitarian pause to get the support, to get the humanitarian relief to two million people who now are in an extremely dire situation,” he told reporters.
China’s effort for ending Israeli violence
Also, China on Tuesday said it will work with the international community to help end the ongoing Israeli violence in the Gaza Strip, noting that the core of the conflict is Israel’s “illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory.”
“The root of the cycle of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in the long-term illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory, the long-term neglect of the right of the Palestinian people to independent statehood, and the lack of a fundamental guarantee of the basic rights of the Palestinian people,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, stressing, “This historical injustice should not continue.”
Tehran’s readiness to work out a deal
Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Minister was in Qatar on Tuesday to coordinate and discuss efforts needed for an immediate stop in the fighting in Gaza.
Tehran has announced it is ready to use its relations with Hamas to work out a cease-fire deal between the group and the Israelis, although Iran does not have any relations with the Israeli regime.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held meetings with senior Qatari officials, including Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha before departing for Turkey to continue his diplomatic efforts to help find a solution to the crisis in Palestine.
Emphasizing the need to use the last political opportunities to stop the war in Gaza, Amir-Abdollahian stated that the resistance stream will not wait for anyone’s advice to confront the Zionists.
Yemen’s Houthis on Tuesday pledged more attacks against Israel if its war in Gaza continues, saying it had already fired drones and ballistic missiles in three separate operations.
Amir-Abdollahan also met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the second such encounter since the war erupted.
During the meeting, the top Iranian diplomat was briefed about the latest situation of people in Gaza amid ongoing Israeli aggression on the small blockaded territory.
AP, AFP, Reuters, CNN, and Press TV contributed to this report.