GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, Dec 22, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - The
Israel-Hamas war is pushing Gaza towards famine, the United Nations warned
ahead of an expected Security Council vote Friday on a resolution to boost aid
to the Palestinian territory but not call for a ceasefire.
At the few hospitals in Gaza still functioning, more wounded arrived after
renewed Israeli strikes.
In the Gaza City district of Jabalia, a strike on a house killed 16 people
and wounded more than 50, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said.
Northern Gaza no longer has any functioning hospitals, and only nine of the
territory's original 36 hospitals are still partly functioning, the World
Health Organization has said.
Four members of one family, including a girl, died in a strike on a
civilian vehicle in Rafah, southern Gaza, the health ministry said.
In video shot by AFP, the vehicle looked like it had been pounded by a
giant hammer that splayed its roof, leaving the wreckage blackened and
blood-stained.
"The Jeep was hit. Five minutes later people gathered and a second attack
took place. Two strikes on the same Jeep," said Hamada Abu Taha, a witness.
With aid workers running out of words to describe conditions in Gaza, the
UN Security Council has been locked all week in negotiations over how to phrase
a resolution about the war.
The latest draft seen by AFP calls for "urgent steps to immediately allow
safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions
for a sustainable cessation of hostilities."
It does not call for an immediate end to fighting.
Backed by its ally the United States, Israel has opposed any reference to a
"ceasefire".
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, told reporters that
Washington would support the resolution if it "is put forward as is".
The war began on October 7 when Hamas gunmen broke through Gaza's
militarised border and killed around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians,
according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Palestinian militants also abducted about 250 people.
- Nearly two million displaced -
Vowing to destroy the group, Israel began a relentless bombardment of
targets in Gaza, alongside a ground invasion, which has killed 20,057 people,
according to the latest toll released Friday by Hamas authorities who have
ruled Gaza since 2007.
Most of the dead are women and children, Hamas officials say.
The entire population of Gaza faces "an imminent risk of famine", according
to a UN-backed global hunger monitoring system on Thursday.
The UN estimates 1.9 million Gazans are now displaced, out of a population
of 2.4 million.
With homes destroyed, they are living in crowded shelters and struggling to
find food, fuel, water and medical supplies. Diseases are spreading, and
communications have been repeatedly cut.
According to the UN, the number of aid trucks entering Gaza is well below
the daily pre-war average.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday said Israel could enable as many
as "400 trucks a day" of aid and blamed the UN for failing to bring more.
In north Gaza, parts of Gaza City including Shujaiya have seen
street-by-street combat -- even building-by-building -- between Israeli
soldiers and Hamas fighters.
According to the military, the deaths of two more soldiers in Gaza brought
to 139 the number killed since it began its ground assault on October 27.
- 'Even the animals have died' -
The area around the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza has been a focus of
Israeli military operations which "intensified" over the past week, a military
spokesperson said.
An evacuation order issued Friday by the military told residents in the
area of Bureij, an existing refugee camp in central Gaza, to move further south
to Deir al-Balah city.
Many Gazans have fled as far south as they can, to Rafah, yet even there
they have not found safety.
"These are the houses of peaceful people," Shehda al-Kurd, a bespectacled
man, said after his family's house "collapsed over us" during a pre-dawn strike.
"This area might have been considered the safest one, but they struck it,"
he said.
A separate strike hit an area of greenhouses in Rafah.
Wael Azad, a Palestinian farmer, said "even the animals have died."
"May God have mercy on the people," he added, wrapped in a scarf and
woollen cap against the cold.
Paula Gaviria Betancur, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of
internally displaced persons, said in a statement that "Israel's military
operation in Gaza aims to deport the majority of the civilian population en
masse."
The UN-appointed independent expert said that with Gaza's infrastructure
"razed to the ground" any realistic prospects for displaced Palestinians to
return home are frustrated.
- Increasing pressure -
Responding to similar suggestions earlier in the war, an Israeli defence
ministry spokesperson said there was "never... an Israeli plan to move the
residents of Gaza to Egypt."
Israel has been under increasing pressure from allies to protect civilians.
Qatar, backed by Egypt and the United States, last month helped broker a
week-long truce that saw 105 hostages released, including 80 Israelis in
exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli authorities say 129 hostages are still held in Gaza.
Several others have died. On Friday a group representing hostage families
announced that Gad Haggai, 73, was among the fatalities. His kibbutz community
and the army also confirmed his death.
A flautist, Haggai was abducted on October 7 along with his wife who
remains captive.
The head of Hamas visited Egypt this week, and talks took place in Europe,
regarding a possible new deal. But the stated positions of Israel and Hamas
remain far apart.
The war has also sparked fears of wider conflict with regular exchanges of
fire across the Lebanon border, and missiles from Iran-backed Yemeni rebels
which have disrupted Red Sea shipping.
The Pentagon said on Thursday that more than 20 countries have joined a
US-led coalition to protect shipping in the waterway vital for world trade.
