Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they will eliminate Hamas following their October 7 attack that claimed 1,400 lives in Israel and took over 240 hostages.
GAZA: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-Nov 6th, 2023) Israeli forces continued their intense airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza on Monday, marking nearly a month of conflict. The Hamas-run health ministry reported that the death toll in the besieged territory had neared 10,000.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that they would eliminate Hamas following their October 7 attack that claimed 1,400 lives in Israel and took over 240 hostages. Israeli ground forces have advanced into the northern part of the Gaza Strip and have tightened their encirclement of Gaza City, even as hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in defiance of Israeli evacuation orders.
On Monday, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry reported over 200 casualties from "overnight massacres," just a day after disclosing a total death toll exceeding 9,770, with a majority being women and children.
The United States, Israel's ally, dispatched its top diplomat, Antony Blinken, on a whirlwind tour of the middle East, during which he voiced strong criticism of Israel, including during his latest stop in Turkey.
The heads of major United Nations agencies jointly issued a statement urging an immediate ceasefire in the territory inhabited by 2.4 million people. The Israeli siege has severely restricted access to water, food, and fuel.
"We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It's been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now," read the statement.
Israel's military announced on Monday that they had launched "significant" new airstrikes on Gaza, having previously claimed to have struck over 12,000 targets.
"We will take the fight to Hamas wherever they are—underground or above ground," declared Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus, reiterating calls for civilians to evacuate the urban war zone.
"We will be able to dismantle Hamas, stronghold after stronghold, battalion after battalion, until we achieve the ultimate goal, which is to rid the Gaza Strip—the entire Gaza Strip—of Hamas."
'Are there any survivors?'
On Sunday, the Hamas-run health ministry reported that 45 individuals were killed in Israeli strikes on a refugee camp in central Gaza, leading to desperate searches through the rubble.
"Are there any survivors?" cried Said al-Najma as he attempted to clear the debris from the road in the camp. "They brought down an entire street on the heads of women and children without any notice."
Israeli troops and Hamas fighters have engaged in house-to-house combat in the densely populated Gaza Strip, resulting in 1.5 million people fleeing to other parts of the territory.
Netanyahu remained resolute in his stance, vowing on Sunday that "there won't be a ceasefire until the hostages are returned."
Shortly before the latest round of airstrikes, internet and telephone lines were severed, according to the Israeli army.
Israel issued leaflets and sent text messages instructing Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to head south, but a US official stated on Saturday that at least 350,000 civilians remained in the hardest-hit areas.
Blinken in Turkey
During his regional tour, which included visits to the occupied West Bank, Cyprus, and Iraq on Sunday, Blinken called for "humanitarian pauses" while rejecting calls for a ceasefire from Arab nations.
On Monday, Blinken met with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Ankara. Prior to his arrival in Turkey, where protests occurred and police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators who marched on an air base housing US forces in Turkey's southeast.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to be snubbing Blinken as he traveled across the remote northeast of his country on Monday. Turkey has announced the recall of its ambassador to Israel and the suspension of contacts with Netanyahu.
During a meeting with Blinken in the West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned "the genocide and destruction suffered by our Palestinian people in Gaza at the hands of Israel's war machine."
In Iran, a prominent adversary of Israel and the United States, President Ebrahim Raisi, alleged on Monday that the Biden administration was "encouraging" Israel to "kill and commit cruel acts" against Palestinians.
