Gaza:
The number of Palestinian deaths from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza rose to around 3,000 on Tuesday, health authorities said, and at least six people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a school run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency.
The violence raged as Washington announced that US President Joe Biden would visit Israel on Wednesday to express support for the war against Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Israel has vowed to destroy the Islamist group after Hamas gunmen crossed the border and killed 1,300 people, mostly civilians, during a rampage through southern Israeli communities on October 7, the deadliest day in Israel’s 75-year history.
Since then, Israel has leveled parts of densely populated Gaza with airstrikes, driving about half of its 2.3 million residents from their homes and imposing a total blockade on the enclave, cutting off food, fuel and medical supplies.
An Israeli airstrike killed senior Hamas military commander Ayman Nofal, who Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, said was in charge of central Gaza.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday that around 3,000 people – including many women and children – have been killed and 12,500 injured in Gaza since October 7.
It added that 61 Palestinians have also been killed and 1,250 injured in clashes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said at least six people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza’s Al-Maghazi refugee camp.
“This is outrageous and once again demonstrates a blatant disregard for the lives of civilians,” UNRWA said in a social media post. “No place in Gaza is safe anymore, not even the UN facilities.”
Amid the death and destruction, the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave worsened as Israeli troops and tanks massed at the border for an expected ground invasion.
Dozens of trucks carrying essential supplies for Gaza headed Tuesday toward Egypt’s Rafah crossing, the only entry point into the coastal enclave outside Israeli control, but there were no clear indications they would be able to enter.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Biden’s planned visit at the end of hours of talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli leader had agreed to develop a plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza’s citizens to give. He gave no details.
Blinken said Biden “will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people.”
He will also hear how Israel will conduct operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and allows humanitarian aid into Gaza to help civilians “in a way that does not benefit Hamas,” Biden said.
Israel’s national security adviser predicted Tuesday that the United States would “get involved” if the war escalated to the point where Iran and the heavily armed Lebanese group Hezbollah joined on behalf of Hamas.
In a briefing, Tzachi Hanegbi noted statements of support from Biden, including US naval deployments in the Mediterranean and a warning to Hezbollah and Tehran to stay out of the fighting.
“He is making it clear to our enemies that if they even imagine participating in the offensive against the citizens of Israel, there will be American involvement here,” Hanegbi said.
“Israel will not be alone… An American force is here and ready,” he added, without elaborating.
Washington is also trying to rally Arab states to help prevent a broader regional war, after Iran promised “preventive action” from its allies.
After Israel, Biden is expected to travel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
He will also meet Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank but lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007. The PA accused Israel on Tuesday of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Lifting debris with bare hands
In Jabalia, in the northern half of Gaza that Israel has ordered evacuated, panicked residents used their bare hands to lift chunks of concrete and metal and screamed as they pulled bodies from the rubble in a smoking bomb crater. Others ran with stretchers to carry the wounded.
A man emerged from a destroyed building carrying the limp body of a little boy in his arms.
Residents fleeing the north have crammed into southern areas such as Khan Younis, but have found no respite from the bombings there.
Amin Hneideq woke up to an explosion in Khan Younis that crashed the window and ripped open his daughter’s head. The bomb had missed his house but destroyed a house nearby, killing a northern family who had sought shelter there.
“They brought them from the north to attack them in the south,” Hneideq said, crying.
UNRWA said only about 14 percent of Gaza residents had access to water through a single pipe to Khan Younis, which Israel was allowed to open for three hours on Monday. Concerns about dehydration and disease were high as water and sanitation facilities had collapsed. “People will die without water,” UNRWA said.
Even if the Rafah crossing opens to allow aid in, most Gazans will not be released. Egypt rejects any mass exodus, saying it would amount to an expulsion of Palestinians from their land.
‘Vile video’
Hamas released a video of a French-Israeli hostage, Maya Schem, one of 199 prisoners captured during the militants’ October 7 raid and taken to Gaza.
France called the video “despicable”. Schem’s mother told a news conference that she was “begging the world to bring my baby back home.”
Fighting has also intensified on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
The Israeli army said on Tuesday it had killed four people who tried to cross the border to plant explosives. Security sources in Lebanon said four people had been killed by Israeli shelling near the village of Alma Al-Shaab on the Lebanese side of the border.
Iran, which sponsors both Hamas and Hezbollah, has celebrated the Hamas attacks on Israel but denies being behind them. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told state television: “We cannot be indifferent to the war crimes committed against the people of Gaza.”
Clashes have also worsened in the West Bank, which had been mired in the worst unrest for years before the Hamas attacks from Gaza.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)