GAZA STRIP (AFP) – Israeli forces pounded besieged Gaza on Wednesday and fought Hamas around several hospitals, despite a Untited Nations (UN) Security Council demand for a ceasefire.
Talks in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal involving United States (US) and Egyptian mediators have brought no result so far.
Tensions have risen between Israel and its top ally the US over dire food shortages in Gaza and the soaring civilian death toll in the war sparked by Hamas’ attack on October 7.
The US also opposes Israeli plans to push its ground offensive into the far-southern city of Rafah, crowded with up to 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the war.
In heavy overnight bombardment, Israeli strikes again hit Gaza City and Rafah, where a fireball lit up the sky.
Israeli forces have battled militants in and around three Gaza hospitals, raising fears for patients, medical staff and displaced people inside them.
Fighting has raged since last week around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, and more recently near two hospitals in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, Al-Amal and Nasser.
Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles have also massed around the Nasser Hospital, the Gaza Health Ministry said, adding that shots were fired but no raid had yet been launched.
The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped inside and “their lives are in danger”.
Gaza has endured almost six months of war and a siege that has cut off most food, water, fuel and other supplies, and the UN has warned that its 2.4 million people are on the brink of a “man-made famine”.
The flow of aid trucks from Egypt has slowed since the start of the war as Israeli officials carry out lengthy inspections.
Donor governments have airdropped food into Gaza, where desperate crowds have rushed towards aid packages drifting down on parachutes.
At least 18 people have been reported killed this week in stampedes or drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamas has urged an end to the airdrops and called for stepped-up road deliveries instead.
AFP images on Wednesday showed a military aircraft again parachuting aid packages into Gaza, and the Jordanian military announced “five airdrops” over the territory’s north with Egyptian, Emirati, German and Spanish planes.
The UN Security Council on Monday passed its first resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of the captives.
The US, which had blocked previous resolutions, abstained, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scrap a scheduled US visit by his officials to discuss the situation in Rafah. But a US official said later Israel wanted to reschedule talks.
Israeli and Hamas envoys have engaged in weeks of indirect negotiations aimed at halting the fighting, but both sides said this week the diplomacy was failing.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari has said that the talks were “ongoing” at a technical level.
Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad charged that Israel “is being intransigent and wants to keep the war going”.
“There hasn’t been any progress in ceasefire talks or negotiations for prisoners’ exchange,” he said.
Amid the bloodiest ever Gaza conflict, violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli raid Wednesday on the northern city of Jenin killed three people.
