TEL AVIV
Israel heavily bombarded Gaza City on Tuesday, witnesses told media, after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio backed Israel’s offensive in the devastated Palestinian territory. “There is heavy, relentless bombing on Gaza City, and the danger keeps increasing,” witness Ahmed Ghazal said, adding that homes had been destroyed and residents were trapped under the rubble.
Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told media that “bombing is still ongoing heavily across Gaza City, and the number of deaths and injuries continues to rise”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday backed Israel’s new offensive on Gaza City and its goal of eradicating Hamas, casting doubt on whether diplomacy would work to end nearly two years of war.
Rubio showed no daylight between himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a visit to Jerusalem, despite President Donald Trump chiding Israel a week earlier for carrying out air strikes on Hamas leaders in US partner Qatar. “The people of Gaza deserve a better future, but that better future cannot begin until Hamas is eliminated,” Rubio told reporters at a joint press conference with Netanyahu.
“You can count on our unwavering support,” he said. Meanwhile, United Nations investigators on Tuesday accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza in a bid to “destroy the Palestinians” there, and blamed Israel´s prime minister and other top officials for incitement.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which does not speak on behalf of the world body and has faced harsh Israeli criticism, found that “genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur”, commission chief Navi Pillay told media. “The responsibility lies with the State of Israel.”The COI concluded that Israeli authorities and forces had since October 2023 committed “four of the five genocidal acts” listed in the 1948 Genocide Convention.
These are “killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
