 "Joe Biden")
Israeli troops advanced toward Gaza City on Thursday, as the Palestinian death toll rose above 9,000. With no end in sight after weeks of heavy fighting, US and Arab mediators intensified efforts to ease Israel’s siege of the Hamas-ruled enclave and called for at least a brief halt to the hostilities in order to aid civilians.
US President Joe Biden suggested a humanitarian “pause” as an apparent agreement among the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports and dozens of wounded to leave Gaza for the first time. Dozens more left on Thursday.
Israel did not immediately respond to Biden’s remarks, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously ruled out a cease-fire.
Arab countries, including those allied with the US and at peace with Israel, have expressed mounting unease with the war.
Jordan recalled its ambassador from Israel and told Israel's envoy to remain out of the country until there's a halt to the war and the “humanitarian catastrophe” it is causing.
Jordan recalled its ambassador from Israel and told Israel's envoy to remain out of the country until there's a halt to the war and the “humanitarian catastrophe” it is causing.
On Thursday, Israeli tanks and troops pressed towards Gaza City but met fierce resistance from Hamas militants using mortars and hit-and-run attacks from tunnels as the Palestinian death toll from nearly four weeks of bombardments mounted.
The war is closing in on the Gaza Strip’s main population centre in the north where Israel has been telling people to evacuate as it vows to annihilate the Islamist group.
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“We are at the gates of Gaza City,” said Israeli military commander Brigadier General Itzik Cohen.
Israel’s latest strikes have included the heavily-populated area of Jabalia set up as a refugee camp in 1948.
Gaza’s Hamas-run media office said at least 195 Palestinians were killed in the two hits on Tuesday and Wednesday, with 120 missing and at least 777 people hurt.
Israel, which accuses Hamas of hiding behind civilians, said it killed two Hamas military leaders in Jabalia.
“We are fighting on all fronts and hitting Hamas wherever it is found,” Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said, warning of a long and complex fight. “We will hunt them down through night and day, in their cities and in their beds.”
The latest war in the decades-old conflict began when Hamas fighters broke through the border on October 7. Israel says they killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages in the deadliest day of its 75-year history.
Israel’s ensuing bombardment of the small Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people has killed at least 8,796 people, including 3,648 children, according to Gaza health authorities.
Though Western nations and the United States in particular have traditionally supported Israel, harrowing images of bodies in the rubble and hellish conditions inside Gaza have triggered appeals for restraint and street protests around the world.
Palestinians are suffering shortages of food, fuel, drinking water and medicine. Sewage is leaking, some are drinking salt water and the trickle of aid permitted in by Israel is a tiny proportion of what is needed. Hospitals, including Gaza's only cancer hospital, are struggling due to fuel shortages.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also expressed concern that Israel’s “disproportionate attacks” may constitute war crimes.
And as the need for severe humanitarian aid emerges in Gaza, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said that 61 trucks of humanitarian aid crossed into Gaza on Thursday via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, reported The Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, a Hamas official has said that the organisation would repeat the October 7 Israel terror attacks and stressed that if given a chance, the terror group will repeat similar assaults many times in the future until the country is destroyed. He emphasised that Israel has “no place on our land.”
Ghazi Hamad, a member of the militant group’s decision-making political bureau, shared the remarks during an October 23 Lebanese television interview republished by British outlets. which was later translated and published on Wednesday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), according to The Times of Israel.
70 colleagues have died in Gaza, says UN
The United Nations agency that has been assisting Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that 70 of its colleagues have been killed and at least 22 injured since Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Hamas attacks on October 7.
“This is the highest number of UN aid workers killed in a conflict in such a short time,” the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said. The agency said about 700,000 displaced persons are taking refuge in its facilities, 44 of which have been damaged since the onset of hostilities
600 people may leave Gaza
Hamas said 600 more foreigners and dual nationals, including 400 American citizens, are expected to leave Gaza on Thursday. That would be the second batch to exit since the border with Egypt was opened Wednesday — when people were allowed to leave for the first time since the war started October 7.
- Two Hamas commanders killed in Gaza refugee camp attack, claims Israel
- 16 out of 35 gaza hospitals out of service: Palestine
- Israeli battalion's commander killed in north Gaza
