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RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) – Israeli warplanes pounded parts of the Gaza Strip overnight into Saturday in a series of attacks, including some of the shrinking plots of land that Palestinians were ordered to evacuate. away to the southern territory.
The latest attacks come a day after the United States a United Nations resolution calls for an immediate end to humanitarian aid to Gaza, although it is supported by many members of the Security Council and many other governments. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the British government absent.
“Attacks from the air, land and sea are strong, continuous and widespread,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres before the election. The Gazans “are said to be moving like human pinballs – floating between the tiny southern hemispheres, with no basis for survival.”
Guterres told the council that Gaza is in a “collapsed state” with aid at risk of total collapse, and he feared “the consequences could jeopardize security the whole region.”
Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt have been sealed off, leaving Palestinians with no choice but to seek refuge inside the territory. The death toll in Gaza since the start of the war has exceeded 17,400, most of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its reading.
Israel has blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties, accusing the militants of using civilians as human shields, and said it had made extensive efforts and orders to keep civilians out of harm’s way. .
On Saturday, Gazans reported airstrikes and attacks in the northern part of the strip as well as in the southern part, including the town of Rafah, which lies near the border of Egypt and where the Israeli army ordered civilians to leave.
The main hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah received the bodies of 71 people who died in bombings in the area in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said this morning. Saturday. The hospital also received 160 injuries, the ministry said. In the southern town of Khan Younis, the bodies of 62 people and 99 wounded were taken to Nasser Hospital in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.
Israel is trying to maintain a military standoff in northern Gaza, which has signaled that strong resistance from the territory’s Hamas leaders is not important. . Tens of thousands of residents are believed to remain in the area despite evacuation orders, six weeks after soldiers and tanks rolled in during the war declared by Hamas. . died October 7 attack aimed at the public in Israel.
About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attack, and more than 240 people were kidnapped. A temporary peace has seen Palestinian prisoners and detainees released, but more than 130 detainees are believed to remain in Gaza.
More than 2,200 Palestinians have died since the December 1 ceasefire, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Despite growing international tensions, the Biden administration remains opposed to opening the cease-fire, arguing that it allows Hamas to survive and become a threat to Israel. Officials have expressed concern in recent days about rising casualties and humanitarian crises, but they have not publicly called for Israel to end the war, now in its third month.
“We haven’t given Israel a deadline, that’s not our responsibility,” deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told a defense conference the day before the US veto. to the UN Security Council. “That said, we have influence, even if we don’t have ultimate control over what happens on the ground in Gaza.”
Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, argued that the ceasefire would be a victory for Hamas. “Stopping the war means giving a reward to Hamas, releasing the hostages in Gaza, and marking terrorist groups everywhere,” he said. free world.”
The delegation of foreign ministers from Arab countries and Turkey was in Washington to urge the Biden administration to end its protests with an immediate suspension. The Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Friday before the meeting with the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, that the Israeli invasion and occupation of Gaza is a war crime, and that one that is disrupting the region.
As the war resumed after a short break more than a week ago, the US urged Israel to do more to protect civilians and allow more aid to besiege Gaza. The appeals came as Israel expanded its air and ground offensive in southern Gaza, especially the southern town of Khan Younis, sending tens of thousands more people fleeing.
“It was a night of heavy gunfire and gunfire like every other night,” Taha Abdel-Rahman, a Khan Younis resident, said by phone early Saturday.
Gaza’s Ministry of Public Security said at least one person was killed late Friday in Rafah and others were injured in an attack on a family home.
The department posted photos showing first responders and people using flashlights and cell phone lights to search the wreckage for possible survivors. One crane was seen removing debris while rescuers cut steel poles into collapsed concrete roofs.
Airstrikes were reported overnight in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where resident Omar Abu Moghazi said an attack hit a family home, causing dead.
There were also airstrikes and attacks on Gaza City and other areas in the north of the area.
“It’s normal,” said Mohamed Abded, who lives in the neighborhood of Zaytoun, Gaza City, about the attack. “You have only one choice: leave or they will kill you. That is the situation in the north.”
Israel has assigned a narrow strip of barren sea to the south, Muwasi, a safe zone. But the Palestinians who went there showed a grim picture of overcrowded conditions with insufficient housing and poor sanitation.
“We have not seen anything good here. We are living here in a harsh winter. There are no bathrooms. We are sleeping on the sand,” said Soad Qarmoot, a Palestinian woman who was forced to leave her home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
“I’m a cancer patient,” Qarmoot said late Friday as the children stoked a wood fire for warmth. “I don’t have a window to sleep. I’m sleeping on the sand. It’s cold.”
Imad al-Talateeny, a refugee from Gaza City, said the area lacks basic services to accommodate the growing number of displaced families.
“I don’t have everything to make a person feel,” he said, adding that he had a peaceful, comfortable life before the war in Gaza City.
“I’m not safe,” he said. “So I live in a desert. No gas, no water. The water we drink is dirty water.”
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Becatoros from Athens, Greece.
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