Hamas says Gaza deaths near 10,000

Over 200 Palestinians killed in Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza,

Israeli forces pushed on with intense strikes targeting Hamas in Gaza on Monday as the war neared one month and the Hamas-run health ministry’s death toll approached 10,000 inside the besieged territory.

Intense Israeli airstrikes killed more than 200 people overnight in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run health ministry in the besieged Palestinian territory said Monday.

“More than 200 martyrs were reported killed in the overnight massacres,” the ministry said in a statement, adding the death toll only covered Gaza City and the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Israel began pounding Gaza with what it called “significant” strikes on Monday as soldiers battled Hamas forces in the territory, ignoring ceasefire calls by UN aid agencies who condemned surging civilian deaths in the month-long conflict.

Meanwhile, a knife-wielding attacker stabbed and seriously wounded a female Israeli soldier before being shot dead in annexed east Jerusalem on Monday, police said.

The heads of all major UN agencies issued a rare joint statement Sunday expressing outrage at the civilian death toll in Gaza and calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hamas.

“For almost a month, the world has been watching the unfolding situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in shock and horror at the spiralling numbers of lives lost and torn apart,” the UN chiefs said.

The heads of 18 organizations including UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization described the horrific toll on both sides since the October 7 Hamas cross-border attack from Gaza into Israel, which left about 1,400 people dead, mainly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel has retaliated with relentless air and artillery strikes that have killed at least 9,770 people, also mostly civilians, says the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

In Gaza, the UN statement said, “an entire population is besieged and under attack, denied access to the essentials for survival, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship. This is unacceptable.”

It called on Hamas to release the more than 240 hostages it took in its attack, and urged both sides to respect their obligations under international law as the war rages on.

The UN leaders said more food, water, medicine and fuel must be allowed into Gaza to help its besieged population as Israel attacks with the stated goal of destroying Hamas. “We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” the statement said.

ISRAEL USING MORE ILLEGAL WHITE PHOSPHORUS ON GAZApic.twitter.com/lBNO1aGVnD

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) November 6, 2023

Blinken met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas who denounced what he called “genocide” in Gaza, where the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said at least 9,770 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in more than four weeks of war.

With telecommunications in Gaza cut for a third time, Washington rebuffed calls for a ceasefire.

Global concern has soared over the spiralling Gaza death toll, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again vowed that “there won’t be a ceasefire until the hostages are returned”. “Let them remove this from their lexicon. We are saying this to our enemies and to our friends,” the veteran right-wing premier said after meeting troops at an air force base.

“We will simply continue until we win. We have no alternative.”

Soldiers engaged in house-to-house combat on Sunday as tanks and armoured bulldozers churned through the sand in footage released by the army.

“This strike is like an earthquake,” Gaza City resident Alaa Abu Hasera said in a devastated area where entire blocks have been reduced to rubble.

Blinken, in his talks with Abbas, said Palestinians in Gaza “must not be forcibly displaced”, a US State Department spokesman said.

Israel has distributed leaflets and sent text messages urging Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to head south, but a US official said Saturday at least 350,000 civilians remained in what is now an urban war zone.

Abbas denounced “the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel’s war machine, with no regard for the principles of international law,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

Since Israel sent ground forces into the north of Gaza late last month, “over 2,500 terror targets have been struck” by “ground, air and naval forces”, the army said Sunday.

Shortly after the phone and internet connections were cut, the Israeli army launched its intense bombardment on Gaza City and other nearby zones in the territory’s north.

Some explosions were so powerful they could be heard in Rafah in the far south, an AFP journalist said.

Hamas said Israel was carrying out “intense bombings” around several hospitals in northern Gaza.

Images showed civilians heading south away from the fighting, though military spokesman Hagari told foreign reporters Hamas was using roadblocks to try to prevent them from fleeing.

“We saw dead bodies in the streets,” Suhad Zorob said as she fled south. “We saw the tanks… only one street away from us.”

Turkey on Saturday said it was recalling its ambassador to Israel and breaking off contacts with Netanyahu.

International concern mounted over the suffering.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, visiting Qatar, called for “an immediate, durable and observed humanitarian truce” that could “lead to a ceasefire”.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry of Egypt, the sole conduit for foreigners to escape Gaza and for aid to get in, on Saturday called for an “immediate and comprehensive ceasefire”.

Heartbreak scenes in Gaza 💔💔💔😢 pic.twitter.com/gJbWPwOnMw

— S p r i n t e r (@SprinterFamily) November 5, 2023