Israeli warplanes struck parts of the Gaza Strip in relentless bombardment on Saturday, hitting some of the dwindling bits of land it had told Palestinians to evacuate to in the territory’s south.
The strikes came a day after the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, despite its wide support.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining.
“Attacks from air, land and sea are intense, continuous and widespread,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council before the vote.
Gaza residents “are being told to move like human pinballs – ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south. This is without any of the basics for survival”.
Gaza was at a “breaking point” with the humanitarian support system at risk of collapse.
And Guterres said he feared “the consequences could be devastating for the security of the entire region”.
Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt are effectively sealed, leaving 2.3 million Palestinians with no option other than to seek refuge within the territory 25 miles (40 kilometres) long by some seven miles (11 kilometres) wide.
With the war now in its third month, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,400, the majority women and children.
This figure is according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory, whose counts do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Two hospitals in central and southern Gaza received the bodies of 133 people from Israeli bombings over the past 24 hours, the ministry said on Saturday.
Hamas said on Saturday that it continued its rocket fire into Israel.
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In Gaza, residents reported airstrikes and shelling in the north and south, including the Rafah city near the Egyptian border. Rafah is one area where the Israeli army had ordered civilians to move to.
In a colourful classroom, Israelis strew knee-high children’s tables with rubble.
The Israeli military said on Saturday its forces fought and killed Hamas fighters and found weapons inside a school in Shijaia, a densely populated neighbourhood of Gaza City.
It said soldiers discovered a tunnel shaft in the same neighbourhood where they found an elevator.
Israeli soldiers have killed more than 2,200 Palestinians since the Dec. 1 collapse of a weeklong truce. About two-thirds of them are women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The truce saw the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. But Israelis still believed more than 130 hostages remain in Gaza.
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