More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, have been killed in Israeli air strikes on two homes in the Gaza Strip, rescuers and hospital officials have said.
The strikes flattened two homes on Friday, one in Gaza City and the other in the urban refugee camp of Nuseirat in the centre of the territory.
The Gaza City strike killed 76 people from the al-Mughrabi family, making it one of the deadliest of the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defence department. He gave the names of 16 heads of households within the family, and said the dead included women and children.
Among those killed were Issam al-Mughrabi, a veteran employee of the UN Development Programme, his wife and their five children.
“The loss of Issam and his family has deeply affected us all. The UN and civilians in Gaza are not a target,” said Achim Steiner, the head of the agency. “This war must end.”
Hamas issued a statement on Saturday saying it had lost contact, due to the Israeli bombardment, with the group responsible for five Israeli hostages being held captive in the Gaza Strip since October 7th.
The group believes the hostages were killed during an Israeli raid, Abu Ubaida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, was quoted as saying.
US president Joe Biden spoke with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday to discuss the situation in Israel and Gaza, according to the White House.
Mr Netanyahu voiced appreciation in the call for the US stand at the UN Security Council on Friday, Mr Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. The Security Council had approved a toned-down bid to boost humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and called for urgent steps “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities”.
The US had won the removal of a tougher call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas. It abstained in the vote, as did Russia, which wanted the stronger language.
The resolution was the first on the war to make it through the council after the US vetoed two earlier ones calling for humanitarian pauses and a full ceasefire.
Mr Netanyahu also told Mr Biden in the call that Israel would pursue its war in Gaza until all its objectives had been achieved, the prime minister’s office said.
On Friday, a strike pulverised the Nuseirat home of Mohammed Khalifa, a local TV journalist, killing him and at least 14 others, according to officials at nearby Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital where the bodies were taken.
The attacks came a day after the UN chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel’s offensive is creating “massive obstacles” to the distribution of humanitarian aid.
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Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said late on Friday that forces are widening the ground offensive “to additional areas of the strip, with a focus on the south”.
He said operations were also continuing in the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, the initial focus of Israel’s ground offensive.
The army said on Saturday that it had carried out air strikes against Hamas fighters in several locations of the city.
The military says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, including about 2,000 in the past three weeks, but as not presented evidence of this. It says 139 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.
Israel declared war after Hamas militants stormed across the border on October 7th, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages. Israel has vowed to keep up the fight until Hamas is destroyed and removed from power in Gaza, and all the hostages are freed.
Health officials in the besieged territory say more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and 53,000 wounded.
Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, citing the group’s use of crowded residential areas for military purposes and its tunnels under urban areas. It has unleashed thousands of air strikes since October 7th, and has largely refrained from commenting on specific attacks, including intended targets.
On foot of the Security Council resolution, it was not immediately clear how and when aid deliveries into Gaza would accelerate. Currently, trucks enter through two crossings – Rafah on the border with Egypt and Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres reiterated his long-standing call for a humanitarian ceasefire. He expressed hope that Friday’s resolution may help this happen but said “much more is needed immediately” to end the “nightmare” for the people in Gaza.
He told a news conference that it would be a mistake to measure the effectiveness of the humanitarian operation in Gaza by the number of trucks.
“The real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza,” he said.
He said that the prerequisites for an effective aid operation – security, staff who can work in safety, logistical capacity and the resumption of commercial activity – do not exist.
Israel’s aerial and ground offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history, displacing nearly 85 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and levelling wide areas of the tiny coastal enclave.
More than half a million people in Gaza are starving, according to a report this week from the UN and other agencies. – AP/Reuters