No letup in Gaza bloodshed despite UN ceasefire resolution
•Dozens killed in Israeli strikes on besieged enclave 18 die in mayhem to reach airdropped aid
Israeli troops battled Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, with no sign of a letup in the war despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”
There was intense fighting overnight, with Israeli operations in and around at least three major hospitals in the besieged territory. Gaza’s Health Ministry said 70 people were killed early on Tuesday. Israeli airstrikes killed dozens at both ends of the Gaza Strip overnight, hitting the area around Al Shifa Hospital in the north and Rafah on the southern edge.
In the north, members of the Haseera family said dozens had been killed in a strike that wiped out a family compound near Gaza’s biggest hospital.
“A new massacre against the families of Abu Suhail Abu Haseera, his children and grandchildren, totaling around 30 people,” family member Abu Ali Abu Haseera said. In the south, health authorities said 18 people including eight children were killed in a strike on the Abu Nqaira family home.
Israeli war planes struck near two towns in northeast Lebanon, killing at least two Hezbollah men. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it was a moral and strategic imperative to protect Palestinian civilians and that the humanitarian catastrophe in besieged Gaza was getting worse. Austin was speaking at the start of a meeting with Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon. “In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low,” Austin said, sitting across from Gallant. “Gaza is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe and the situation is getting even worse,” Austin said, using some of his most forceful language so far.
A UN expert told the global body’s Human Rights Council that she believed that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounted to genocide and called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo.
“It is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of and to present my findings,” Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, told the UN rights body in Geneva, presenting a report called “The Anatomy of a Genocide.” Hamas urged foreign nations to stop parachuting aid into wartorn Gaza after officials and humanitarians said 18 people died trying to reach food packages in the starving north. Instead, the group demanded that Israel allow more aid trucks to enter the besieged territory, which the UN has warned is on the brink of a “man-made famine.” Mediator Qatar said that talks between Hamas and Israel on a Gaza truce and hostage release are continuing, despite the warring parties trading blame over the lack of headway.
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Opinion by Osama Al-Sharif, Yossi Mekelberg & Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib