Wednesday , December 4 2024

Global aid agencies demand Gaza ceasefire

07-11-2023

UNITED NATIONS/ GAZA CITY: As heavy bombardment continues throughout the night across Gaza, 18 UN and other humanitarian organizations issue statement calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.

At least 9,922 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank since October 7. More than 1,400 people were killed in Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemns Israel’s “barbaric war of extermination”.

The UN says 88 UNRWA staff killed in Gaza, the “highest number” of “UN fatalities ever recorded in a single conflict”.

Jordan says its air force parachuted urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza.

On the other side, Israeli fighter jets struck 450 Hamas targets in Gaza and troops seized a militant compound in the past 24 hours, Israel’s military said on Monday, in attacks the enclave’s health authorities said killed dozens of people.

A journalist in the Gaza Strip described the overnight bombardment from the air, ground and sea as one of the most intense since Israel launched its offensive in response to a surprise attack by Hamas on southern Israel a month ago.

Health officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza said more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed in the war since Hamas killed 1,400 people and seized more than 240 hostages on Oct. 7.

Israel, which says its forces have encircled Gaza city, faces mounting pressure to avoid civilian casualties after refusing to countenance a ceasefire until the hostages are released, and a U.S. diplomatic blitz in the region is intended to reduce risks of the conflict escalating.

The health ministry in Gaza said dozens of people were killed by the Israeli air strikes in Gaza City and further south in Gaza neighborhoods such as Zawaida and Deir Al-Balah. Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV quoted medical sources as saying at least 75 Palestinians were killed and 106 hurt in the attacks.

The Israeli army said its strikes hit “tunnels, terrorists, military compounds, observation posts, and anti-tank missile launch posts”. Ground troops killed several Hamas fighters while taking a militant compound containing observation posts, training areas and underground tunnels, it said

Media could not independently verify these accounts.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to meet Turkey’s foreign minister in Ankara, hours after hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian protest tried to storm an air base that houses U.S. troops in southern Turkey.

Blinken made an unannounced visit to the West Bank on Sunday to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who joined international calls for an immediate ceasefire. Blinken reiterated U.S. concerns that a ceasefire could aid Hamas, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled one out for now. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)

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