A spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said on Sunday that Israeli military had struck a refugee camp on Saturday night, killing at least 38 people, as calls by the Arab world for a ceasefire were rejected by the United States and Israel.
With the death toll in Gaza mounting, pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged protests in cities around the world on Saturday, calling for an end to the nearly month-old war.
Gaza health officials said more than 9,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which began when Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 others hostage.
Israel continued to strike the Gaza Strip by air, sea, and ground overnight.
Gaza health officials said Israeli air strikes destroyed a cluster of houses in the Maghazi refugee camp. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Salama Marouf, head of the Hamas government media office, told Reuters the strike in Maghazi killed at least 38 Palestinians and wounded 100, adding that an unknown number of people were missing. A Palestinian news agency earlier reported 51 dead. Reuters could not independently verify these accounts.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas, not civilians, and that the Islamist Palestinian group is using residents as human shields.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said there was also intense bombardment, violent artillery explosions, and air strikes in the vicinity of the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza’s Tal Al-Hawa area.
Israel last month ordered all civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip and its military has since encircled Gaza City, where it is engaged in fierce street fighting with Hamas militants.
Israeli planes dropped leaflets on Gaza’s biggest city, ordering people to move south through the Salah Al-Deen Road between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (0800-1200 GMT) on Sunday.
“Time has come, the state of Israel asks you to preserve your lives and to evacuate your homes from the areas of fighting,” the leaflets said.
U.S. special envoy David Satterfield said in Amman on Saturday that 800,000 to a million people had moved south, while 350,000 to 400,000 remained in and around Gaza City.
Living conditions in Gaza, already dire before the war, have deteriorated. Food is scarce, residents are drinking salty water and medical services are collapsing.
The U.N. humanitarian office estimates that nearly 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are internally displaced.
‘MORE PAIN’
Foreign ministers from Qatar, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates met U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman on Saturday and pushed for Washington to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
“This war is just going to produce more pain for Palestinians, for Israelis, and this is going to push us all again into the abyss of hatred and dehumanisation,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said at a press conference with Blinken. “So that needs to stop.”
However, the top U.S. diplomat dismissed the idea of a ceasefire, saying it would only benefit Hamas, allowing it to regroup and attack again.
Washington had proposed localised pauses in fighting to allow in humanitarian aid and for people to leave the densely populated Gaza Strip. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected this when he met Blinken on Friday in Tel Aviv.
Blinken is to visit Turkey on Monday for talks on the conflict, continuing his second trip to the region since the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict reignited.
REUTERS