The Israeli army continued its aggression on Gaza for the 19th day, killing 700 civilians in 24 hours, and raising the death toll to 6,546, according to the Ministry of Health in the besieged Strip. The ministry also reported 17,500 injuries, mostly among children and women.
The government media office in Gaza said on Tuesday that the Israeli occupation had dropped more than 12,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza since 7 October. It said that the impact of these explosives was equivalent to the atomic bomb that the United States detonated over Hiroshima during World War II.
In response to the Israeli attacks, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, launched an “Ayyash 250” missile at Eilat, a city on the Red Sea and 220 kilometres from Gaza. It also fired an “R-160” missile at Haifa.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, also said that it targeted Ashkelon with missiles in retaliation for the Israeli massacres. It confirmed that it hit Sderot with a missile as well.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli escalation persisted, as Israeli forces killed 6 Palestinians and arrested 80 others during raids that covered areas including Jenin and its camp.
Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey called for an end to the war on Gaza and the delivery of aid to the besieged population. In New York, the Arab Group at the United Nations and Russia submitted two separate draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire. The United States presented a draft resolution that only called for humanitarian truces.
On Wednesday, UNRWA announced that 3 more of its employees were killed by Israeli fire, bringing the total to 38 since the start of the aggression. The agency said that it would have to reduce or stop its humanitarian operations in Gaza if fuel did not arrive.
The agency also noted that nearly 600,000 displaced people were living in 150 of its facilities in Gaza. It said that the shelters were now hosting four times their capacity and that many people were sleeping on the streets. According to UNRWA, at least 40 of its facilities were damaged by the bombing in Gaza.
Also on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel agreed to a US request to delay the ground invasion of Gaza so that Washington could send missile defences to the Middle East.
In Cairo, which hosted a peace summit a few days ago, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi held a press conference with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. Al-Sisi expressed his concern about the situation in Gaza and the need to release more prisoners and hostages. He called for restoring calm and ending the violence in the strip.
Al-Sisi also reaffirmed his support for the two-state solution as the only viable option for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He said that he and Macron agreed on this principle.
The Egyptian president cautioned Israel against launching a ground invasion of Gaza, saying that it would lead to a high number of civilian deaths and worsen the crisis. He also said that Israel’s stated goal of wiping out Hamas and other factions in Gaza was unfeasible and would take years to achieve.
He added, “We condemn any actions that harm civilians, regardless of who they are,” and stressed that “the loss of hope in a two-state solution, the expansion of settlements, and the violations in Al-Aqsa Mosque have fueled hatred [among the Palestinians towards Israel].”
On the other hand, Macron reiterated his country’s support for Israel, labeling Hamas as a terrorist group, and calling for its elimination along with all other groups that he considers terrorist.
Meanwhile, Israel dismissed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claim that Hamas “is not a terrorist organization.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Hamas is a terrorist group and that Erdogan’s defense of it “will not change the atrocities that the world has witnessed.”
In response to the Israeli criticism of his remarks that the Al-Aqsa Flood operation was not an isolated incident but rather a result of decades of occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres defended himself, saying: “I was shocked by the misinterpretation of my statement in the Security Council on Tuesday. It is false to say that I was justifying Hamas’s terrorist actions.”
Guterres clarified that he was referring to the grievances of the Palestinian people on Tuesday, and said that they do not justify the “horrific attacks launched by Hamas.” He also noted that women and children make up more than half of the victims of the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
