Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories - Israel bombarded targets in Gaza on Dec 9 after

the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid for a ceasefire

in the war that has triggered alerts of an “apocalyptic” humanitarian situation.

An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Younis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Dec 9.

At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, an AFP correspondent saw a child on a makeshift stretcher and others simply sitting on the floor waiting to receive care.

Over a 24-hour period, 71 dead and 160 wounded arrived at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah city, following persistent bombings, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Repeated volleys of automatic weapons fire were heard on Dec 9 in Gaza’s north, in live footage aired by AFPTV.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said it fired rockets on Dec 9 towards Reim in southern Israel.

Outside, firefighters poured water onto the flames of a burning building partly destroyed by an Israeli strike.

Gaza’s health ministry said the Israeli operation in the coastal enclave has killed at least 17,000 people since Oct 7.

On that day, Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel

and killed around 1,200 people. They also took about 240 hostages into Gaza, among whom around 100 have been freed.

Israel has been bombarding the Gaza Strip in response since then in a bid to eliminate Hamas.

Vast areas of Gaza, which is run by Hamas, have been reduced to rubble.

The United Nations says about 80 per cent of the population have been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.

“It’s so cold, and the tent is so small. All I have are the clothes I wear, I still don’t know what the next step will be,” said Mr Mahmud Abu Rayan, displaced from Beit Lahia in the north.

‘Into the abyss’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres triggered the rare Security Council vote by invoking a measure unused in decades.

He sought the council’s endorsement of a ceasefire because, he said, rapidly deteriorating current conditions make it “impossible for meaningful humanitarian operations”, with potentially irreversible implications for regional peace and security.

The US on Dec 8 vetoed the Security Council resolution.

US envoy Robert Wood said the resolution was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground”.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the ceasefire “would prevent the collapse of the Hamas terrorist organisation, which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip”.

Humanitarian groups swiftly condemned the veto.

Ms Avril Benoit, head of the Doctors Without Borders charity, described the US veto as a “sharp contrast to the values it professes to uphold”.

There was anger, too, at a residential area of Rafah destroyed in an Israeli strike.

“What resolution did the Security Council ever approve and was implemented for our cause and Palestinian people?” Mr Mohammed al-Khatib asked from among the rubble.

Hamas denounced the US move as “a direct participation of the occupation in killing our people”.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh called it “a disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace”.

On Dec 9, Iran, which backs Hamas, warned about the possible “uncontrollable explosion in the situation of the region” after the US veto.

Mr Guterres said on Dec 8 “the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss”, with “a spiralling humanitarian nightmare”.

Many of the 1.9 million Gazans who have been displaced by the war have headed south, turning Rafah near the Egyptian border into a vast camp.

‘Apocalyptic’ situation

The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) executive board is to convene on Dec 10 to discuss Gaza’s health situation.

Ahead of a meeting, more than a dozen WHO member states expressed “grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation”.

Their draft resolution also urged Israel to protect aid workers in Gaza.

One of only two partially operating hospitals in Gaza’s north, Al-Awda, “is surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks, and fighting is ongoing in its vicinity”, the UN said.

Aid groups emphasised the worsening conditions for people struggling to survive in overcrowded Gaza, where fuel and medical supplies are critically low, people sleep in the streets, and essentials like diapers are unavailable.

Ms Alexandra Saieh, of Save the Children, spoke of “maggots being picked from wounds and children undergoing amputations without anaesthetic”.

The situation “is not just a catastrophe, it’s apocalyptic”, said Ms Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam.

With the civilian toll mounting, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Dec 8 that Washington believes Israel needs to do more to protect civilians in the conflict.

“We certainly all recognise more can be done to... reduce civilian casualties. And we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end,” he said.

Washington provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel.

Israel says 93 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza, and two others were wounded in a failed bid to rescue hostages.

“Numerous terrorists” were killed in the operation, the army said on Dec 8.

Lebanon border strikes

Hamas earlier said a hostage was killed in the operation, and released a video purporting to show the body, which could not be independently verified.

Strikes in neighbouring countries reinforced worries over a potentially wider war.

Israel’s army on Dec 9 said it had fired overnight towards the source of unspecified launches from Lebanon towards Israeli territory.

Fighter jets also struck targets of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, the military said.

In south Syria, three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed on Dec 8 in an Israeli drone strike, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Hezbollah said, without giving details, that three of its fighters had been killed.

The US embassy said salvoes of rockets were fired at its compound in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on Dec 8, as well as facilities hosting American troops who are part of an anti-militant coalition.

Washington blamed Iran-aligned militias, who have conducted dozens of similar strikes since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

This was the first such attempt against the US embassy. There were no reported casualties or damage. AFP