The fighting is now concentrated in Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Yunis. (file)
Palestinian territories:
Israeli raids on Gaza killed more than 200 people in 24 hours, Hamas-controlled authorities said on Saturday, as the United States again pressed its ally to do more to protect civilians.
Despite growing calls for restraint and for more aid to be delivered to Palestinians affected by the war, Israel has shown little sign of altering the 11-week-old “Operation Iron Swords” aimed at defeating Hamas.
The Israeli army said that 152 soldiers have been killed so far in its attack on the Gaza Strip.
The fighting is now concentrated in Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Yunis, both of which are considered strongholds of the Palestinian movement that carried out bloody raids on Israel on October 7.
After reports of violent Israeli bombardment, gray and black smoke rose over the northern coastal strip and in Khan Yunis.
The refugee camp-turned-city is the birthplace of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza and the man Israel holds most responsible for the October attacks.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy visited troops on the ground in Khan Yunis, telling them the operation was “very impressive, really impressive, both the attack here and the execution of the operation in a safe way.”
Outside the city’s Nasser Hospital morgue, grieving relatives prayed, cried and looked blankly as they tried to process immeasurable loss.
Hamas authorities said that the number of deaths in this war has now exceeded 20,000 people.
“This is genocide,” said resident Raafat Al-Aidi.
Israel denies directly targeting civilians and says the war against Hamas is necessary to ensure there is no repeat of the raids it launched in October on farms, villages and cooperative groups, which killed an estimated 1,140 people.
“We want a ceasefire”
In Washington, President Joe Biden said he had another “long conversation” with hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House said the discussions focused on the “objectives and phases” of the Israeli military operation, as well as “the critical need to protect the civilian population, including those supporting humanitarian aid operations.”
Israeli officials gave a brief reading of the call, saying, “The Prime Minister made it clear that Israel will continue the war until it achieves all its goals.”
144 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground attack began about a month ago.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has had tense relations with a series of American presidents. But disagreements over how to pursue the Gaza war, when it will end, and what will happen the next day have increasingly strained relations.
On Friday, the United States allowed a UN Security Council resolution to be passed, effectively calling on Israel to allow “immediate, safe, and unhindered” aid delivery to Gaza “on a large scale.”
World powers argued for several days over the wording, and because of Washington’s insistence, they relaxed some provisions, including canceling the call for a ceasefire.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accused Israel of “creating enormous obstacles” to the delivery of aid.
For Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the prospect of receiving aid alone was not enough.
Mahmoud Al-Shaer said, “We do not want food, we want a ceasefire.”
Ahmed Al-Barawi, who was displaced from Beit Lahia to the north, added: “We just want to return to our lands, that’s all. We want a solution” to end the war. “People are dying,” he said.
The war led to the displacement of about 80 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million people, according to United Nations estimates.
‘disconnection’
Israelis, including friends and relatives of the 129 prisoners believed to be held in Gaza, demonstrated again on Saturday in Tel Aviv.
The armed wing of Hamas said it had “lost contact” with its activists tasked with guarding five hostages, including three elderly men who appeared in a video of the hostages published by the movement this week.
Spokesman Abu Ubaida said, “We believe that these hostages were killed” in the Israeli raids, without providing any evidence.
Talks aimed at reviving the truce and exchanging prisoners appear to be stalled.
A previous truce allowed the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, but it ended after one week.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
