Israeli-Hamas: Deaths hit 7,000, humanitarian crisis worsens

Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry says 5,791 people, including more than 2,000 children and 1,400 women have been killed in Israel’s air raids on the besieged enclave.

More than 1.4 million people have been displaced within the Gaza Strip since the bombardment began, the United Nations also said.

The fighting which entered its 18th day in the Gaza Strip after Hamas gunmen stormed into Israel on October 7, left the death toll in Israel still at 1,400 with over 200 taken hostages, according to Israeli officials.

AFP reports that diplomatic pressure on Israel to limit civilian casualties is growing, although Western governments remain steadfast in their support for the country.

Humanitarian crisis has worsened in Gaza as fuel and water become scarce, with the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees warning it will be forced to stop working in Gaza unless fuel deliveries are made to the territory by Wednesday.

“Time is running out. We urgently need fuel,” said UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma, according to AFP.

Six Gaza hospitals have already had to shut down because of a lack of fuel, the World Health Organisation said.

A small number of aid trucks have entered Gaza since the weekend, but they are only a fraction of the usual flow across the border.

Mohammad Al Shanti was forced to travel nearly four miles to Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza to fill up plastic bottles with water. It’s only enough for his family’s most basic needs.

“We don’t wash our clothes, we save every little drop,” he told CNN, describing the water situation as “catastrophic.”

Finding clean water is becoming an all-consuming and increasingly difficult challenge for many Gazans.

Gaza bombardment

Hamas said an overnight bombing by Israel killed 140 people in Gaza.

The Hamas-run health ministry said they are among 5,791 people killed since the war started, 2,360 of them children.

The UN noted that six employees of its agency for Palestinian refugees had been killed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of UNRWA staff killed in the war to 35.

Hamas health ministry also said about 50 people were killed Tuesday in a single hour of increased Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip.

“The Israeli occupation expands its targeting of multiple areas in the Gaza Strip, killing about 50 martyrs during the last hour,” a health ministry spokesperson said in a statement late Tuesday.

UN chief wants ceasefire

UN chief Antonio Guterres called at the Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and alleged international law was being breached in Gaza.

Guterres sparked fury from the Israeli delegation when he said the Hamas attacks “did not happen in a vacuum” and criticised Israel’s “suffocating” occupation.

Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, responded by saying: “Mr Secretary-General, in what world do you live?”

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and became the first Western leader to visit Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank since the conflict erupted on October 7.

In a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Macron said the release of all hostages held by Hamas was the “first objective” of the military campaign.

At a news conference with Netanyahu, Macron called for a “decisive relaunch” of the long-stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Macron later met Abbas in Ramallah, telling him the Hamas attacks were “also a catastrophe for the Palestinians”. Abbas told Macron that the international community must stop Israel’s “aggression” as it battles Hamas in Gaza.

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