Israeli strikes kill 50 hostages: Hamas

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: Hamas said Thursday that Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed almost 50 of the hostages its militants seized in bloody cross-border attacks as the United Nations warned “nowhere is safe” in the territory.The group’s armed wing made the claim, which AFP could not immediately verify after Israel sent tanks, troops and armoured bulldozers into the enclave in a “targeted raid” overnight that the military said destroyed multiple sites before withdrawing.

“(Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades estimates that the number of Zionist prisoners who were killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Zionist strikes and massacres has reached almost 50,” the group said in a statement on its Telegram channel.

On the 20th day of Israel’s bloodiest Gaza war yet, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Lynne Hastings, said that despite the Israeli military issuing warnings to people in Gaza City to leave, “advance warnings make no difference”. She said in a statement that when evacuation routes are bombed, “people are left with nothing but impossible choices. Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”

The army said overnight its forces hit “numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts”. Black smoke billowed into the sky after a blast in the grainy night-vision footage the Israeli military released hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared preparations for a ground war were underway. The operation in northern Gaza came in “preparation for the next stages of combat”, the military said.

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari has said an Israeli air raid killed Shadi Barud. Hagari accused Barud of working with Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s top official in Gaza, in planning the October 7 attack on Israel.

The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, addressed an emergency UN meeting in New York a short time ago. Visibly emotional, his voice cracked and his hands began to shake as he read out stories of some of the more than 3,000 children officials in Hamas-run Gaza say have been killed since 7 October. He opened his speech by calling on world leaders to help “stop the bombs” in order to save the lives of civilians.

He said Israel has destroyed over 40pc of homes in Gaza which and made “an entire population homeless and displaced”, accusing Israel of trying to “forcibly transfer” people out of Gaza.

International alarm has increased amid growing shock about the scale of human suffering inside the besieged Palestinian territory where Israel has cut off most water, food, fuel and other basic supplies. The medical teams are overwhelmed, exhausted and can’t keep up with the large influx of casualties. The Hamas-run ministry of health in Gaza has published a detailed list of 7,028 people it says have been killed since 7 October. The document contains the names and ages of each victim. It includes 6,747 registered names and refers to 281 unidentified bodies. It says that 2,665 children have been killed. Most of the unidentified bodies are those of children.

The World Health Organization is demanding “unobstructed access” to deliver life-saving assistance to Gaza. “The humanitarian and health crisis in Gaza has reached catastrophic proportions,” said Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the agency’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean.

The UN Refugee Agency for Palestinians said it urgently needs fuel to maintain life-saving humanitarian operations. “If fuel is not received into Gaza, UNRWA will be forced to significantly reduce and in some cases bring its humanitarian operations across the Gaza Strip to a halt. The coming 24 hours are very critical,” it said.

US President Joe Biden, a strong supporter of Israel, earlier joined the calls for it to “protect innocent civilians” and to follow the “laws of war” as it pursues Hamas. Biden stressed that “when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next”. He reiterated that Washington supports a two-state solution with independent Israeli and Palestinian states.

And Jordan’s King Abdullah II said anger at the suffering could “lead to an explosion” in the Middle East.

In a rare public appeal to its allies in the region, a senior Hamas official told the Associated Press that the Palestinian group had expected stronger intervention from Hezbollah in its war with Israel. Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s decision-making political bureau, said that “we need more” from allies, including Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. “Hezbollah now is working against the occupation,” Hamad said at the Hamas office in Beirut. “We appreciate this. But… we need more in order to stop the aggression on Gaza. “We expect more.”

In Brussels, the EU leaders called for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” to get aid into Gaza. The European Council expressed the gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. It called for unimpeded humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through humanitarian corridors and pauses. It also backed Israel’s right to defence in line with international law and international humanitarian law.

Nine Arab countries in a joint statement condemned forced displacement and collective punishment in the Gaza Strip. The foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also said that the right to self-defence does not justify breaking the law and neglecting the rights of Palestinians. Moreover, they condemned what they described as the forced displacement and collective punishment in the Gaza Strip.Pope Francis spoke to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasising the importance of a two-state solution, the Vatican said.

In a statement, it said the telephone call had been requested by Erdogan and focused on the “dramatic situation in the Holy Land”.

The Turkish presidency said in a statement that during the call with the pope, Erdogan had again stated he believed Israel’s attack on Gaza had “reached the level of a massacre”. Erdogan added that “the international community’s silence about what is happening is a shame for humanity”.