More than 10,000 people have now been killed in Israeli strikes, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. More than 4,000 of them are said to be children.
Yet more wounded youngsters were shown being carried into Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city in this video obtained by Reuters. They were reportedly injured in a strike on Al-Shati refugee camp.
But Israel, which says its forces now encircle Gaza City, is rebuffing mounting international pressure for a ceasefire.
It insists hostages taken by Hamas militants during their rampage in southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 people, should be released first.
Eighteen heads of U.N. agencies issued a statement saying the war must stop.
This was Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:
“The protection of civilians must be paramount. I’m deeply concerned about the clear violations of International Humanitarian Law that we are witnessing.”
“And the unfolding catastrophe makes the need for a humanitarian ceasefire more urgent with every passing hour.”
This man, who gave his name only as Mohammed, describes surviving a strike on Deir al-Balah.
“They pulled us from the rubble,” he says, but “children – girls and boys – were martyred.”
A Reuters journalist in Gaza said an overnight bombardment by air, ground and sea was one of the most intense since Israel began its offensive.
On average, a child is killed and two are injured every 10 minutes in Gaza, according to the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians.
Its shelters in the south of the strip are too crowded to take new arrivals, so displaced people are sleeping in the streets.
In Israel, anger with politicians over the hostages taken by Hamas has grown in the past month.
“Now, now, now,” chant activists outside the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, in Jerusalem demanding their return.
That includes David Goldstein from the Kfar Aza community, ransacked by the Hamas fighters.
“My feeling is that they are not doing enough. Probably they are doing more politics than any effort to bring back the kidnapped.”
