Israeli strikes kill over 100 in Gaza

FE Team | Published: February 06, 2024 21:04:02

WASHINTONG, Feb 06 (AP/AFP): Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed dozens of people, including two children ages 12 and 2, while the Israeli army said Monday its ground forces were fighting Hamas militants who remain in northern and central Gaza.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said 113 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours alone, raising the known Palestinian death toll to 27,478 people after nearly four months of war. A quarter of Gaza's residents are now starving and 85% of the population has been driven from their homes, with hundreds of thousands crammed in makeshift tent camps.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shortly after arriving in the kingdom Monday. It's Blinken's fifth visit to the Mideast since the war in Gaza broke out on Oct. 7, when Hamas stormed into southern Israel. The assault killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and militants abducted around 250 others.
Blinken is seeking progress on a possible cease-fire deal that could free around 100 Israelis still being held hostage in Gaza. He'll also try to tamp down regional tensions ignited by the war, as a flurry of strikes and counterstrikes have raised the risk of a wider conflict.
The Palestinian Red Crescent says some 8,000 displaced people have been evacuated from a hospital where they had sought shelter in the Gaza Strip.
The Al-Amal Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis had been isolated for days by heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.
Russia, China accuse US of
stoking Mideast tensions
Russia and China accused the United States during a UN Security Council meeting on Monday of stoking already high tensions in the Middle East with its recent retaliatory strikes on Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria.
The US military struck dozens of targets in Syria and Iraq overnight on Friday into Saturday, in retaliation for a January 28 drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three US soldiers.
The strikes, which targeted elite Iranian units and pro-Iranian groups, have led to fears that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza could spiral into a regional conflict.
"It's clear that American airstrikes are specifically, deliberately aimed to stoke the conflict," said Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, whose country had called for the emergency meeting.
China's ambassador Jun Zhang similarly claimed that the "US actions will certainly exacerbate the vicious cycle of tit-for-tat violence in the Middle East."
Blinken visits Egypt
to seek Gaza truce
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Egypt on Tuesday as part of his latest Middle East crisis tour, seeking a new ceasefire and "an enduring end" to the Israel-Hamas war.
Heavy strikes and fighting in Gaza killed at least 99 people overnight, mostly women and children, said the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory that has been under almost four months of bombardment.
Fears grew for more than a million Palestinians crowded into the far southern Rafah area as the battlefront draws ever closer in Israel's campaign to eradicate Hamas over the October 7 attack.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Monday that the military "will reach places where we have not yet fought... right up to the last Hamas bastion, which is Rafah", on the Egyptian border.