Hamas chief urges Muslim states to arm resistance
Gaza War not Palestinians’ only: Haniyeh
Head of Hamas’ political bureau Ismail Haniyeh has called for Muslim states’ support in Gaza war, saying the war in Gaza is not just about the Palestinian people.
“We see countries of the world pouring weapons into the occupation (Israel)... The time has come (for Muslim states) to support the resistance with weapons, because this is... not the battle of the Palestinian people alone,” Haniyeh said on Tuesday in a speech in Doha.
He also underlined that the Israeli enemy has failed to achieve any of its objectives in the war on the Gaza Strip.
Israel vowed to crush Gaza’s Hamas after the resistance group carried out the deadliest attack in the regime’s history on October 7.
The Israeli army said on Tuesday that 185 soldiers have been killed so far in its offensive against Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip. It said nine soldiers died in fighting on Monday, one of the deadliest days for the military since it launched a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory on October 27.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks in Israel as he sought a plan for Gaza’s post-war future, while Israel’s military pushes ahead with its offensive in the beleaguered territory.
Blinken, on his latest mission to rein in the Gaza war, told Israeli leaders that there was still a chance of winning acceptance from their Arab neighbors, if they create a path to a viable Palestinian state.
On his fourth trip to the region since October in a so far largely fruitless quest to tamp down the violence, Blinken said he would share what he had heard in two days of talks with Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Blinken had already said he would press Israel on the “absolute imperative” to do more to protect Gaza’s civilians and allow humanitarian aid to reach them. His boss, President Joe Biden, said overnight that Washington was quietly pushing Israel to begin withdrawing some forces.
Biden, confronted on Monday by protesters shouting “Cease-fire now!” while visiting a church in South Carolina, said he had been “quietly” working to encourage Israel to ease its attacks and “significantly get out of Gaza”.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday at least 23,210 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory, adding that it had recorded 126 deaths in the past 24 hours.
The UN humanitarian office OCHA said that “as casualties rise, the ability to treat them continues to be in jeopardy”.
It said three hospitals in central Gaza and Khan Younis, including Al-Aqsa, were “at risk of closure due to the issuance of evacuation orders in nearby areas and the ongoing conduct of hostilities nearby”.
Sean Casey, World Health Organization Emergency Medical Teams coordinator in Gaza, said that “we are seeing the health system collapse at a very rapid pace”. He said many staff at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis had joined hundreds of thousands of other Gazans crowded into shelters in the strip’s southernmost tip, leaving just one doctor for more than 100 burn victims.
AP, AFP, REUTERS, and Al Jazeera contributed to the report.