The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intensified its air strikes and artillery strikes in the north and south of Gaza on Saturday (December 9), pushing the two-month battle against Hamas to a new climax.
The day before, the United States voted at the United Nations Security Council to veto a draft resolution submitted by the United Arab Emirates calling for the immediate implementation of a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Among the 15 members of the Security Council, 13 countries voted in favor, the United Kingdom abstained, and the United States used its veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council.
“We do not support this resolution’s call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only sow the seeds of renewed conflict,” Ambassador Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, said in explaining the U.S. veto vote.
Hamas politburo member Ezzat El-Reshiq condemned the US veto as “inhumane”, while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the US veto The United States became “complicit in Israel’s war crimes.”
Since the brief ceasefire between Israel and Kazakhstan broke down last week, Israeli forces have stepped up ground attacks in southern Gaza and entered the key southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. At the same time, both Israel and Kazakhstan said that fierce fighting also broke out in northern Gaza.
Reuters quoted residents of Khan Younis as saying on Saturday that the Israeli army had ordered residents of another district to the west of the area that Israel captured earlier this week to evacuate, which means that further Israeli offensives are imminent.
The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been forced to flee their homes. Many people have fled repeatedly and passed through several places. As the current fighting has spread to various areas in the north and south of Gaza, local residents and United Nations agencies have stated that there is no place in Gaza that is safe and can be used as a refuge. However, Israel refutes this claim.
Israel has blocked Gaza’s only north-south road, preventing Gazans from fleeing along this road. The Israeli army also drove Gaza residents toward the Mediterranean coast.
Reuters reported that the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis was already overcrowded, but dead and injured people continued to be sent to the hospital on Friday night. A rescue worker jumped out of an ambulance, holding in his arms the limp, unresponsive body of a girl in a pink tracksuit. Injured children lay on the hospital’s tiled floors, crying and squirming as nurses ran to and fro trying to comfort them. Outside the hospital, rows of bodies wrapped in white shrouds lay on the ground.
On Friday night, a house in Khan Younis was hit by artillery fire and burst into flames.
Zainab Khalil, 57, led 30 relatives and friends to escape from a community in the west of the Israeli-occupied area of Khan Younis. She told Reuters that the Israeli army had ordered residents of nearby Jalal Street to leave, “so it is only a matter of time before they launch an attack on this area. All night long, we heard explosions.”
“We didn’t dare to sleep at night, we kept our eyes open. We tried to let the children sleep, but we didn’t dare to sleep because we were worried that the house would be bombed, and we would have to flee with the children at any time. But at dawn, we encountered a new tragedy: taking the What are you going to feed the child?” Khalil said.
Nasser Hospital and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Abera in southern Gaza reported 133 deaths and 259 injuries in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to nearly 17,500. In addition, thousands of people are missing and probably dead.
Video obtained by Reuters from inside another Ghaffa hospital in Deir Albrey showed that a mosque next door to the hospital was hit by a bomb and suffered severe damage. Through holes in the windows that had been blown out, you could see that the mosque had been reduced to a pile of rubble.
Reuters reported that there were no updates on Saturday on the number of casualties elsewhere in Gaza, including across northern Gaza. Hospitals there have ceased operations and ambulances are unable to access or transport the dead.
“We believe there may be more martyrs under the rubble than there are bodies brought to the hospital,” Gaza health agency spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra told Reuters.
Reuters reported that fierce fighting broke out in parts of Gaza City in northern Gaza and in northern Gaza settlements close to the Israeli border. The huge fireball caused by the explosion could be seen across the border in Israel.
Families of residents of northern Gaza posted on the Internet calling on rescuers to go to Gaza City to rescue their loved ones who were still trapped in the city.
“We ask the Red Cross and first responders to immediately go to Atallah Tower, a building on Qala Street in Gaza City near Zahana Tower where someone is trapped inside. The building is on fire,” Atallah’s family posted online explain.
The Israeli military said fierce fighting broke out between Israeli troops and Hamas militants who attacked Israeli troops on Gaza’s northern border and in schools in Gaza City. A video released by the Israeli army showed an Israeli lieutenant colonel saying in a primary school that the school was used by Hamas militants to store weapons.