Israel pressed on with its bombing of
Gaza on Tuesday after saying its campaign to destroy Hamas has left the
Palestinian militant group on the “verge of dissolution”.
Humanitarian leaders fear the besieged
territory will soon be overwhelmed by disease and starvation, and are piling
diplomatic pressure on Israel to boost efforts to protect civilians.
Fierce fighting raged with Hamas saying
clashes had taken place in central Gaza and witnesses reporting deadly Israeli
strikes in the south of the territory.
Strikes on Monday targeted Gaza’s main
southern city of Khan Yunis, now the epicentre of the fighting, as well as
Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt where tens of thousands of people are
seeking shelter.
“Hamas is on the verge of dissolution –
the IDF is taking over its last strongholds,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav
Gallant said late Monday.
The war began with Hamas’s October 7
attacks that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and saw around
240 hostages taken back to Gaza.
Fighting and heavy bombardment in the
south, where Israel had previously urged civilians to seek safety, have left
people with few places to go.
UN Vote
The UN General Assembly is due to vote
Tuesday on a non-binding resolution demanding “an immediate humanitarian
ceasefire” in Gaza – a call that the Security Council has so far failed to
make.
United States, one of only five
permanent members of the Security Council, used its veto on Friday to halt a
draft text calling for a ceasefire.
In a bid to build pressure, Arab
countries called for the new special session of the General Assembly following
a visit to the Rafah border by more than a dozen Security Council ambassadors.
The draft text, seen by AFP, largely
reproduces the resolution blocked in the Council on Friday by United States.
Fears of a wider conflict continue to
grow, with Iran-backed groups targeting US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria,
and daily exchanges of fire along Israel’s border with Lebanon.
A drone and rockets targeted two
military bases in Iraq and Syria on Monday housing forces of the international
coalition against the Islamic State group, a US military official said.
Israeli bombardment killed an official
in south Lebanon, the National News Agency said, amid near-daily cross-border
exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah.
