Israel keeps pounding Gaza while truce efforts continue
EMBOLDENED by a U.S. veto in its favor, Israel kept pounding a faminethreatened Gaza yesterday, while truce talks resumed in Cairo.
The bombardment of the besieged enclave continued a day after a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire was blocked by a U.S. veto.
Washington, which argued the resolution would have imperiled ongoing efforts to free hostages, sent top White House official Brett McGurk to Cairo for renewed talks involving mediators and Hamas.
Global concern has spiraled over the high civilian death toll and dire humanitarian crisis in the war sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion of Israel.
Combat and chaos again stalled the sporadic aid deliveries for desperate civilians in Gaza, where the U.N. has warned the population of 2.4 million is on the brink of famine and could face an “explosion” of child deaths.
The U.N. World Food Programme said it was forced to halt aid deliveries in north Gaza because of “complete chaos and violence” after a truck convoy encountered gunfire and looting.
More Israeli strikes pounded Gaza, leaving 103 people dead during the night, according to the Health Ministry, which put the overall death toll at 29,313.
“We can’t take it anymore,” said Ahmad, a resident of Gaza City, where entire blocks are in ruins and cratered streets are strewn with rubble.
“We do not have flour, we don’t even know where to go in this cold weather,” he said. “We demand a cease-fire. We want to live.”
Particular concern has centered on Gaza’s far-southern Rafah area, where 1.4 million people now live in crowded shelters and makeshift tents, fearing attacks by nearby Israeli ground troops.
AT LEAST two people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a residential building in the Syrian capital Damascus yesterday, state media said.
A military source cited by Syrian state TV said the strike at about 9:40 a.m. (0640 GMT) wounded a number of other people, identifying the dead as civilians.
Images published by Syrian state media showed the charred side of a multi-story building. The security source said the “attack did not achieve its aims.”
The neighborhood hosts residential buildings, schools and Iranian cultural centers, and lies near a large, heavily guarded complex used by security agencies. The district was struck in an Israeli attack in February 2023 that killed Iranian military experts.
Witnesses heard several back-to-back explosions. The blasts scared children at a nearby school and ambulances rushed to the area, the witnesses told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Iran’s semi-official Student News Network said no Iranian citizens were killed in the strike.
Yesterday afternoon, a Reuters witness heard another large blast in the capital that shook the windows of homes. Local Syrian outlet Sham FM said several explosions were heard in the capital without specifying the cause.
Iran has been a major backer of the Bashar Assad regime during Syria’s nearly 12-year conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli airstrikes meant to curb Tehran’s extraterritorial military power.
Those strikes have ramped up in line with flaring regional tensions since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion, with more than half a dozen Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers killed in suspected Israeli strikes on Syria since December.