2023-12-12 09:08:02
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel and the United States were increasingly isolated amid global calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, including a non-binding vote that is expected to go ahead at the United Nations later Tuesday. Israel has pressed ahead with its offensive once morest Hamas, the insurgent group that rules the besieged Palestinian enclave, and said it might last weeks or months.
The war sparked by Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7 has caused an unprecedented level of death and destruction in the impoverished territory, with more than 18,000 Palestinians dead — mostly women and children — and more than 80% of its 2.3 million inhabitants forced to leave their homes.
Much of the north of the Strip was devastated and hundreds of thousands have fled to the shrinking so-called safe zones in the south. The health care system and humanitarian aid operations have collapsed in much of Gaza, and aid workers warn of starvation and the spread of disease among displaced people crowding shelters and camps.
Israel bombed southern Gaza, the area where civilians had been ordered to shelter, overnight and early Tuesday, killing at least 23 people, according to an Associated Press reporter at a nearby hospital. .
In the north of the enclave, the NGO Doctors Without Borders said a surgeon at Al-Awda hospital was wounded on Monday following being shot from outside the center, which it said has been under “total siege” by Israeli forces for a week. . The military had no immediate comment.
In a briefing with the AP, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declined to set a deadline, but indicated that the current phase of the war — with intense ground fighting and airstrikes — might last several weeks and that the activity military might continue for months.
According to Gallant, the next phase will include lower intensity fighting once morest “hotbeds of resistance” and will require Israeli forces to maintain their freedom of operation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signed that Israel will maintain control of security in Gaza indefinitely.
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