Israel launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, killing hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The surprise bombardment shattered a ceasefire in place since January and threatened to fully reignite the 17-month-old war.
The White House said it had been consulted and voiced support for Israel’s actions.
During a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, said that Palestinians are once again being “killed indiscriminately” after Israeli strikes restarted overnight.
After the majority of the permanent members of the council condemned Israel, Mansour called on the U.N.’s highest body to act on their condemnations.
“This can never be justified and must stop immediately. I agree with you, Madame President, when you said that you have a responsibility to act,” Mansour said to Christina Markus Lassen, the Danish ambassador who is leading the council this month. “You are the Security Council. Act. Stop this criminal action. Stop them from denying our people food in the month of Ramadan, You have resolutions. Act. You have power. Act.”
He added, “Or as my friend, the ambassador of Slovenia said, you will become irrelevant.”
Tom Fletcher is demanding that Israel resume deliveries of food, medicine, fuel and other supplies to Gaza’s 2.1 million people.
The U.N. humanitarian chief told the Security Council that Israel’s block on aid deliveries since March 2 is reversing progress during the recent ceasefire, when over 4,000 supply trucks entered Gaza every week.
Since the cutoff, he said, only medical evacuations and humanitarian staff rotations have been allowed and “even that came to a halt today.”
Fletcher said supplies in Gaza are being rationed.
He said the impact of Israel’s actions is serious: Israeli power cuts to southern Gaza’s desalination plant have affected 600,000 people’s clean water access, vegetable prices in the north have tripled, and six bakeries subsidized by the U.N. World Food Program have closed for lack of cooking gas.
Israeli strike wipes out 27 members of the same family, medics say
An Israeli airstrike flattened a multistory house in Gaza City early Tuesday, killing at least 27 people from the extended family of Qraiqa, according to Palestinian medics.
More than half of the dead were women and children as young as 1 year old, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. They have been taken to Ahly Hospital.
The dead include two parents and their five children; a mother and her four children, four siblings and others, a list of the dead showed.
US defends Israeli strikes, blames Hamas for ‘resumption of hostilities’
In a tense U.N. Security Council meeting, Dorothy Shea, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, defended Israel’s decision to launch a series of airstrikes that killed more than 400 Palestinians dead, saying Hamas’ refusal to negotiate forced the military action.
“The blame for the resumption of hostilities lies solely with Hamas,” Shea said, echoing the Trump administration’s reaction to the strikes. “It is the people of Gaza who will suffer further because of Hamas’s disregard for human life.”
Hamas alleged that Israel has not come to the table in recent weeks to initiate phase two of the ceasefire deal. (AP News)
