With world unmoved, Israel in no mood to end the 'slaughter

NT Bureau, Agencies

Tel Aviv/Gaza Strip: A barrage of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday crushed multiple residential buildings and buried families under rubble, as health officials in the besieged territory reported hundreds killed in the past day and the closure of medical facilities because of bomb damage and a lack of power.

Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the devastating Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on towns in southern Israel.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the attacks killed at least 704 people over the past day, including 305 children and 173 women; the ministry said it tallies daily figures collected from hospital directors.

The Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud says Arab leaders at the UN headquarters in New York have gathered with “a unified message – that more violence is not the answer, that all civilian life is deserving of protection and that includes the lives of the Palestinian civilians in Gaza”.

One overnight strike leveled a four-story residential building in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing at least 32 people and wounding dozens of others, according to survivors.

Another airstrike hit a bustling marketplace in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing several shoppers and wounding dozens as they shopped for meat and vegetables, witnesses said.

In the nearby al-Aqsa Hospital, the bodies of three children killed in the day’s bombardment were lined up on the floor, wrapped in white cloth.

The health ministry says more than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including some 2,300 minors. The figure includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week.

“Bodies pour in by the hundreds every day. We use every empty inch in the cemeteries,” said Abdel Rahman Mohamed, a volunteer who helps transfer bodies to Khan Younis’ main cemetery. “Some bodies arrive in pieces in bags. It’s horrible.”

Qatar emir tells Israel 'enough is enough'

The emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has called on the international community to restrain Israel in its fight against Hamas, saying Israeli forces should not be given the green light for unconditional killing in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“Enough is enough,” the emir said, addressing Israel at the opening session of the Shura Council in Doha on Tuesday. It is unacceptable that Israel be given an “unconditional green light and a free licence to kill,” the emir said, Al Jazeera reported.

The Israeli “occupation, siege and settlement” could not be ignored, he said. “In our time, cutting off access to water and withholding medicines and food as a weapon against an entire population should also not be allowed.”

The Emir said the bloodshed must stop and civilians must be spared the consequences of military confrontations.

The emir went on to condemn the violence against innocent civilians on both sides, but also faulted the international community for “double standards” and “acting as if Palestinian children’s lives are not worth to be reckoned with, as though they are faceless or nameless”.

Relentless bombing by Israel deeply alarming: UN chief

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Tuesday asserted that no party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law as he expressed deep alarm over the “relentless bombardment” of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip by Israeli forces and appealed to all to “pull back from the brink” before the violence escalates even further.

"The situation in the Middle East is growing more dire by the hour. The war in Gaza is raging and risks spiralling throughout the region. Divisions are splintering societies. Tensions threaten to boil over,” Guterres told a Security Council ministerial meeting on the Middle East.

Freed Israeli hostage says Hamas treated her well

An elderly Israeli hostage Yocheved Lifshitz who was released by Hamas overnight said she had been beaten by the militants when she was abducted and taken to Gaza on October 7, but was then treated well during her twoweek captivity in the Palestinian enclave.

During the press conference held in a hospital in Tel Aviv, she was asked why she shook hands with a member of the Hamas movement, she said it was because "They treated us very well."

She added that the first thing the resistance fighters told them was that they were people who "believed in the Quran and would not harm them", adding that they would get the