Israel continued its assault on Gaza on Saturday; hours after international powers called for increased aid to be permitted into the besieged Palestinian enclave, Hamas officials reported intense bombardment in many cities.
18 people were slain in an attack on a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to the health ministry under Hamas control. Other targets were also struck throughout the strip.
The Israeli army, whose forces have been engaged in street-to-street combat with Hamas gunmen in Gaza City, said late on Friday that it has destroyed a “strategic” tunnel complex, a “Hamas headquarters,” and eliminated terrorists.
More than 400 people had died in 48 hours of Israeli shelling, according to the health ministry in Gaza, which has been governed by the Islamist movement Hamas since 2007.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for “immediate, safe, and unhindered” deliveries of life-saving supplies to be sent “at scale” to Gaza, which sparked the most recent bloodshed.
Members argued over the resolution’s language for days before it was finally passed.
The Security Council backed down from calling for a truce to end the 11-week-old conflict, which started on October 7 with Hamas’s deadly raids into Israel, at the demand of Washington.
It is still unclear what, if any, impact the vote will have on the ground.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a ceasefire was still needed, arguing aid could not be adequately delivered while the bombs were falling.
“The way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid,” he said.
Famine looms
Immediately after the UN vote, Israel vowed to continue its air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip until Hamas is “eliminated” and hostages still being held in the territory are freed.
“Israel will continue the war in Gaza,” said Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, insisting the war was legal and just.
But pressure is growing on Israeli authorities to recalibrate the Gaza offensive.
According to an AFP assessment based on Israeli estimates, the conflict started on October 7 when Hamas terrorists surged through Gaza’s militarized border and murdered roughly 1,140 people in Israel, the most of them civilians.
Additionally, roughly 250 persons were kidnapped by Palestinian militants; 129 of them are still in Gaza, according to Israeli police.
The Hamas government in Gaza claims that 20,057 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s ground invasion and unrelenting shelling of the area, predominantly women and children. Israel had vowed to destroy Hamas.
Many Gazans have been pushed into cramped shelters or tents while large areas of the Gaza Strip have been reduced to rubble. They are battling to locate food, gasoline, water, and medical supplies.
The United Nations estimates the fighting has displaced almost 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.4 million population.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned a majority of those uprooted from their homes were now going “entire days and nights without eating”.
“Hunger is present, and famine is looming,” he said.
‘Massive obstacles’
Hopes for a Christmas-time truce dim with each passing day, although talks brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States are ongoing.
A one-week truce that ended on December 1 saw 105 hostages released from Gaza captivity, including 80 Israelis in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
“This is not a life: no water, no food, nothing,” said wheelchair-bound Walaa al-Medini, who is now in the Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, after a strike on her home in Gaza City.
“My daughter died in my lap, and I was rescued from under the rubble after three hours,” she said. “Our house, along with everything around us, was destroyed.”
Friday’s much-delayed UN resolution came after days of diplomatic bickering, and only passed thanks to US and Russian abstentions.
It gives the United Nations a bigger role in coordinating the delivery of aid to Gaza.
But Israel’s foreign minister insisted his country would retain control of what goes into Gaza and “will continue to screen all humanitarian aid to Gaza for security reasons”.
Hamas described the resolution as “an insufficient measure that does not respond to the catastrophic situation created by the Zionist (Israeli) war machine”.
According to the UN, the number of aid trucks entering Gaza is well below the daily pre-war average.
Conflagration
Israel authorized the distribution of aid through its Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza last week; according to the army, 80 trucks per day pass through this crossing to enter Palestinian territory.
During a media tour of the facility on Friday, which was arranged by the Israeli military, journalists witnessed a line of aid vehicles stretching for miles, standing still for hours as troops examined them.
Unfazed by the delay, Egyptian driver Said Abdel Hamid declared he was “proud to bring help to my Palestinian brothers” as he took off the tarpaulin sheet covering his cargo of flour for inspection.
Since the start of the conflict, the West Bank, the border between Israel and Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and the sea off Yemen have all turned into flashpoints, with organizations backed by Iran often threatening to extend the battle well beyond Gaza.
Israel stated that rocket fire from Lebanon, where Hezbollah, an organization backed by Iran, and other factions have conducted almost daily cross-border attacks in support of Hamas, killed one of its soldiers on Friday.
Hezbollah said Israeli fire killed two of its fighters.
Missiles from Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels — claiming to act in solidarity with Gazans — have disrupted Red Sea shipping.
The United States accused Iran of being involved in the attacks.
“We know that Iran was deeply involved in planning the operations against commercial vessels in the Red Sea,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.