The death toll in Gaza was reported by the Hamas-run health ministry to have risen to more than 10,000 on Monday with no ceasefire in sight, as a further escalation of fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border increased concern that the conflict could develop into a much wider regional conflagration.
After completing the siege of Gaza city, Israeli forces advanced into the city from the north and south, accompanied by intense air strikes, temporarily crashing the internet and cellular phone networks. Israeli troops were reportedly moving in the direction of the city’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, beneath which Israel claims Hamas has a major control and command centre. More than 40,000 residents are camped out in the hospital compound, believing the area is relatively safe compared with the rest of Gaza.
Gaza health officials claim a number of people were killed and injured when an Israeli missile hit a roof of al-Shifa hospital.
On Sunday, the Israeli military released new intelligence purporting to show Hamas using hospitals to carry out its operations and on Monday showed images of rocket launchers and more than 50 rockets, which it said were located in a compound used by a youth movement and in a mosque.
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The Israeli military continues to urge the residents of Gaza to leave the northern part of the coastal enclave for their own safety, even though its forces are also operating in central and southern sectors.
On day 31 of the war, the Hamas-run health ministry said 10,022 people have been killed since October 7th, when some 3,000 Palestinian fighters infiltrated southern Israel, killing 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and seizing 240 hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt reopened Monday allowing more foreign nationals and seriously wounded residents to leave.
The heads of several major United Nations bodies made a united call for a humanitarian ceasefire. “This is unacceptable,” they said in a joint statement. “We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now.”
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the protection of civilians “must be paramount”, warning that the Gaza Strip was becoming “a graveyard for children.”
“We must act now to find a way out of this brutal, awful, agonising dead end of destruction,” Mr Guterres told reporters, and again called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
Jordan has parachuted urgent medical aid to a Jordanian field hospital in Gaza. Jordan’s King Abdullah tweeted: “We will always be there for our Palestinian brethren.”
Hizbullah, Hamas and other Palestinian militias based in south Lebanon, fired more than 30 projectiles towards Israel on Monday, causing sirens to go off in the Haifa area for the first time during the current conflict. Israel responded with air strikes and artillery fire into south Lebanon.
Fearing an all-out war on Israel’s northern border, the US has continued to beef up its forces in the Middle East and sent a nuclear submarine to the region on Sunday night.
Israeli troops killed four militants in Tulkarem in the West Bank. In east Jerusalem a 16-year-old Palestinian stabbed and killed a border policewoman, before himself being shot dead by police.
