Israel sharply ramps up Gaza strikes ahead of rare UN vote
Israeli forces squeezed Gaza’s main cities Friday, ahead of an extraordinary UN bid for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas resistance group.
The UN extraordinary bid was set for a vote on a resolution urging an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, after UN chief Antonio Guterres took the extraordinary step earlier in the week of invoking the UN charter’s Article 99 to call the vote.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a statement on Thursday, welcomed the UN chief’s move to wield his power under Article 99 of the UN Charter to urge the Security Council to halt Israel’s onslaught on Gaza.
On Friday, Israel sharply ramped up strikes on the Gaza Strip, pounding the length of the Palestinian enclave and killing hundreds in a new, expanded phase of the war that Washington said veered from Israeli promises to do more to protect civilians.
Israel’s assault on Gaza that started on October 7 by Hamas’s deadly attack have left at least 17,487 people dead, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll from Health Ministry in the besieged strip.
Vowing to destroy the resistance movement, Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza and sent in tanks and ground troops since the war began by Hamas fighters that killed about 1,200 people in Israel.
On the verge of
collapse
With the vast majority of Gazans now displaced and unable to access any aid, hospitals overrun and food running out, the main UN agency there said society was “on the verge of a full-blown collapse”.
Residents and the Israeli military both reported intensified fighting in both northern areas, where Israel had previously said its troops had largely completed their tasks last month, and in the south where they launched a new assault this week.
Thomas White, Gaza head of UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinians, wrote on X: “Civil order is breaking down in Gaza – the streets feel wild, particularly after dark – some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned. Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse.”
Ramy Abdu, head of the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, posted pictures showing severe damage to the vast medieval Great Omari Mosque, the most important landmark in Gaza’s Old City, apparently hit for the first time. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
US alarms
“As we stand here almost a week into this campaign into the south… it remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a press conference in Washington on Thursday.
“And there does remain a gap between… the intent to protect civilians and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
In a phone call Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden, whose country provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, “emphasized the critical need to protect civilians and to separate the civilian population from Hamas,” the White House said.
Biden also called for “corridors that allow people to move safely from defined areas of hostilities.”
With the fighting now extended across both halves of the Gaza Strip at the same time, residents say it has become almost impossible to find refuge. Israel says it is providing more detail than ever about which areas are safe and how to reach them, and blames Hamas for harm that befalls civilians by operating among them, which Hamas denies.