Gaza
\nIsrael pressed its offensive against Hamas fighters in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire in the two-month war.
\nHamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as the Hamas-run health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people, mostly women and children.
\nAn Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.
\nVast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s so cold, and the tent is so small. All I have are the clothes I wear, I still don\u2019t know what the next step will be,\u201d said Mahmud Abu Rayan, displaced from Beit Lahia in the north.
\nA UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate ceasefire was vetoed by the United States on Friday.
\nUS envoy Robert Wood said the resolution was \u201cdivorced from reality\u201d and \u201cwould have not moved the needle forward on the ground\u201d.
\nIsraeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the ceasefire \u201cwould prevent the collapse of the Hamas terrorist organization, which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip\u201d.
\nHamas slammed on Saturday the US rejection of the ceasefire bid as \u201ca direct participation of the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing\u201d.
\nPalestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said it was \u201ca disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace\u201d.
\nThe veto was swiftly condemned by humanitarian groups, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) saying the Security Council was \u201ccomplicit in the ongoing slaughter\u201d.
\nIsrael\u2019s military said Friday it had struck 450 targets in Gaza over 24 hours, showing footage of strikes from naval vessels in the Mediterranean.
\nThe Hamas health ministry reported 40 dead near Gaza City in the north, and dozens more in Jabalia and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
\n\u2018Spiralling nightmare\u2019
\nFollowing two months of conflict and bombardment, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Friday \u201cthe people of Gaza are looking into the abyss\u201d.
\n\u201cPeople are desperate, fearful and angry,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cAll this takes place amid a spiralling humanitarian nightmare.\u201d
\nMany of the 1.9 million Gazans who have been displaced by the war have headed south, turning Rafah near the Egyptian border into a vast camp.
\nWith the death toll of medical workers in the conflict mounting, more than a dozen World Health Organization member states submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarians in Gaza.
\nThey called for Israel to \u201crespect and protect\u201d medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.
\nOnly 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity, according to United Nations\u2019 humanitarian agency OCHA.
\nWith the civilian toll mounting, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that Washington believes Israel needs to do more to protect civilians in the conflict.
\n\u201cWe certainly all recognize more can be done to\u2026 reduce civilian casualties. And we\u2019re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end,\u201d he said.
\nThe death toll also rose in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot dead six Palestinians on Friday, the territory\u2019s health ministry said.
\nIsrael said Friday it has lost 91 soldiers in Gaza.
\nIt said two others were wounded in a failed bid to rescue hostages overnight, and that \u201cnumerous terrorists\u201d were killed in the operation.
\nHamas claimed a hostage was killed in the operation, and released a video purporting to show the body, which could not be independently verified.
\nHamas rocket parts, launchers and other weapons as well as a one-kilometre tunnel were found at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, the army said, as it warned residents to move west.
\nUS embassy attack
\nAn attack on the US embassy in Iraq on Friday deepened fears of wider regional conflict.
\nSalvoes of rockets were launched against the mission in Baghdad\u2019s heavily fortified Green Zone, adding to dozens of recent rocket and drone strikes by pro-Iran groups against American or coalition forces in Iraq and Syria.
\nSeparately, three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed on Friday in an Israeli drone strike on their car in the south of Syria, a war monitor said.
\n\u201cA Syrian and three Lebanese Hezbollah fighters from the surveillance and missile-launching unit were killed in the Israeli drone strike on their rented car\u201d in Madinat al-Baath town in the province of Quneitra, close to the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
\nThe previous day the Observatory, which has a network of sources in Syria, reported that Israel hit sites close to Damascus with eight missiles, as well as a \u201cregime military post in the province of Quneitra\u201d, without causing any casualties.
\nThe strikes were a response to the bombardment of the Golan Heights, the monitor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gaza Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas fighters in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire in the two-month war. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as the Hamas-run health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-373455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n