Palestinian officials slam US veto of UN Security Council resolution urging an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as “disastrous” and “a disgrace”.
Israeli bombardment of besieged enclave continues, with dozens reported dead in attacks on Khan Younis in the south.
WFP official says “chaos, desperation” setting in as displaced Palestinians are living in the streets of Gaza without access to food and other essential supplies.
At least 17,487 Palestinians killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the revised official d3@th toll stands at about 1,147.
Pressure continues to mount on the Israeli government as hundreds of families, friends and supporters of Israeli captives call for the release of the 138 still held inside Gaza.
Captives’ relatives have repeatedly called on the government to prioritise the release of their family members over its stated goal of eradicating Hamas.
On Tuesday, a group of recently released captives, along with family members of those still held in Gaza, met PM Netanyahu in a tense meeting. Citing people present at the meeting, Israeli media described scenes of chaos with some family members yelling at Netanyahu while calling for his resignation.
We will bring you more on this as soon as possible.
More death and destruction overnight and in the early hours of this morning.
In Rafah, a city designated by the Israeli military as safe, two residential homes were targeted and more than 10 people were k!ll3d.
In Khan Younis, there has been non-stop artillery shelling and aerial bombardment on the eastern and central sides. The Israeli military vehicles kept pushing to the centre of the city, very close to the vicinity of Nasser hospital.
A home was targeted where an entire family, 13 people, were k!ll3d this morning.
The bombardment in Khan Younis seems to have increased in the past few hours.
Despite the mounting evidence and ongoing atrocities, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has shown little interest in seriously probing Israel, according to Palestinian officials, victims and legal scholars.
On December 2, Eman Nafii was one of dozens of Palestinians invited to meet Khan during his visit to the occupied West Bank. As the wife of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israel, Nafi wanted to speak to Khan about her husband and the Israeli occupation.
But Khan spent most of the meeting talking before his team gave Nafi and other Palestinian victims 10 minutes to share their stories.
“People got angry. They told him, ‘You are coming to listen to us for 10 minutes? How are we going to tell you about our stories in 10 minutes’.
While Khan ended up listening to the victims for about an hour, Palestinians fear that he is applying a double standard by solely focusing his efforts on Hamas and ignoring the grave crimes Israel is accused of having perpetrated over two months of a deadly war.
“Guterres’ appeal to stand on the side of Hamas and request a ceasefire disgraces his position and constitutes a mark of Cain on the UN,” Cohen said, referring to a passage in the Bible that some interpret as a way to describe a badge of shame.
“The invocation of Article 99, after it was not used for the war in Ukraine or for the civil war in Syria, is another example of Guterres’ biased and one-sided stance,” Cohen said, adding that a ceasefire now would “prevent the collapse” of Hamas.
By invoking Article 99 on Thursday, Guterres aimed at formally warning the UN Security Council of the global threat from Israel’s war on Gaza that has k!ll3d more than 17,400 Palestinians in Gaza.
Source Aljazeera
