Israel and the United States were increasingly isolated in the face of global calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, including a non-binding vote that is expected to go ahead at the United Nations.
Israel has pressed ahead with its offensive against Hamas, the insurgent group that rules the besieged Palestinian enclave, and said it could last weeks or months.
The war sparked by deadly Hamas attack over 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 percent 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.
Israel continues bombing the Gaza Strip
He healthcare 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 that a surgeon at Al-Awda hospital He was injured on Monday after being shot from outside the center, which he said has been under “total siege” by Israeli forces for a week. The military had no immediate comment.
In an information session with the APIsraeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declined to set a deadline but indicated that the current phase of the war — with intense ground fighting and airstrikes — could last several weeks and that military activity could continue for months.
According to Gallant, The next phase will include lower intensity combats against the “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.
He UN Secretary General António, Guterres, and the Arab countries have mobilized to a large part of the international community in favor of an immediate ceasefire.
But Washington vetoed those efforts in the Security Council last week while sending tank ammunition to allow Israel to maintain its offensive.
The non-binding vote on a similar resolution that will be voted on Tuesday in the General Assembly will be largely symbolic.
Israel and the United States maintain that any ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power, even in a small part of the devastated territory, would mark a victory for the insurgent group that has ruled the Strip since 2007 and has vowed to destroy Israel.
But many Experts consider the Israeli objective unrealistic due to the deep roots of Hamas in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where many Palestinians see it as resistance to Israel’s decades of military rule.
“Destroying Hamas, including its military capabilities — the main war objective of Israeli leaders — will be a difficult task without decimating what remains of Gaza,” Crisis Group, an international think tank, said in a report published late week in which an immediate ceasefire was also requested.
Gallant said that Israel has already caused serious damage to Hamas by killing half of its commanders battalion and destroy many tunnels, command centers and other facilities.
The army said Tuesday that its aircraft attacked rocket launching sites across Gaza and that its soldiers found 250 rockets, mortars and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in a raid.
According to Israeli authoritiesAbout 7,000 Hamas insurgents — barely a quarter of its estimated fighting force — have been killed and 500 more detained in Gaza in the last month, claims that cannot be verified.
At least 104 Israeli soldiers have been killed during the ground campaign in the enclave, the army said.
