RAFAH, Dec 23 (AP/Reuters): An Israeli airstrike killed 76 members of an extended family, rescue officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel's ongoing offensive is creating "massive obstacles" to the distribution of humanitarian aid.
Friday's strike on a building in Gaza City was among the deadliest of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 12th week, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defense department. He provided a partial list of the names of those killed - 16 heads of households from the al-Mughrabi family - and said the dead included women and children.
Among the dead were Issam al-Mughrabi, a veteran employee of U.N. Development Program, his wife, and their five children.
"The loss of Issam and his family has deeply affected us all. The U.N. and civilians in Gaza are not a target," said Achim Steiner, the head of the agency. "This war must end."
Israel declared war after Hamas militants stormed across the border on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking some 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.
More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's war to destroy Hamas and more than 53,000 have been wounded, according to health officials in Gaza, a besieged territory ruled by the Islamic militant group for the past 16 years.
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 airstrikes since Oct. 7, and has largely refrained from commenting on specific attacks, including discussing the intended target.
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution that calls for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza.
UN approves resolution on aid to Gaza
without call for suspension of hostilities
The U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza but without the original plea for an "urgent suspension of hostilities" between Israel and Hamas.
The long-delayed vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining. The U.S. abstention avoided a third American veto of a Gaza resolution following Hamas' surprise Oct. 7 attacks inside Israel. Russia wanted the stronger language restored; the U.S. did not.
Still, "It was the Christmas miracle we were all hoping for," said United Arab Emirates Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, who sponsored the resolution. She said it would send a signal to the people in Gaza that the Security Council was working to alleviate their suffering.
The resolution culminated a week and a half of high-level diplomacy by the United States, the UAE on behalf of Arab nations and others. The vote, initially scheduled for Monday, was pushed back each day until Friday.
A relieved U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council, "This was tough, but we got there."
Israel creating obstacles to
aid distribution: Guterres
The UN Security Council called for boosting humanitarian assistance for Gaza, but the UN chief Antonio Guterres said the way Israel was conducting its military operation was creating "massive obstacles" to aid distribution inside the battered enclave.
After days of wrangling to avert a threatened US veto, the Security Council on Friday passed a resolution urging steps to allow "safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access" to Gaza and "conditions for a sustainable cessation" of fighting.
The resolution was toned down from earlier drafts that called for an immediate end to 11 weeks of war and diluting Israeli control over aid deliveries, clearing the way for the vote in which the United States, Israel's main ally, abstained.
Washington repeatedly has backed Israel's right to self-defence following the Oct 7 rampage into Israel by Gaza's ruling Hamas militants, who killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages back into the enclave.
Gilad Erdan, Israel's UN ambassador, said the Security Council should have focused more on freeing the hostages and that concentrating on "aid mechanisms" was unnecessary as Israel permits "aid deliveries at the required scale."
Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority split over the measure, with the former saying it was "insufficient" to meet the stricken enclave's needs and defied international calls for an end to "Israel's aggression."
The authority's foreign ministry welcomed the resolution as a step that would help "end the aggression, ensure the arrival of aid and protect the Palestinian people."
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