Israel's airstrikes in Gaza destroy homes, kill dozens at a time
Israel has ramped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, reducing residential buildings to rubble and crushing families. Airstrikes have killed dozens at a time in leveled homes, according to witnesses.
The surging death toll foretells even greater loss of life ahead in Gaza, where Israeli forces are expected to launch a ground invasion seeking to destroy Hamas. Fuel shortages and the bombardment forced the shutdown of medical facilities, Gaza officials said.
U.S. and other officials fear the fighting could spill over into a wider regional conflict.
The war, in its 19th day Wednesday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 5,791 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 704 in the past day, and 16,297 wounded. In the occupied West Bank, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed and 1,650 wounded in violence and Israeli raids since Oct. 7.
The Associated Press could not independently verify the death tolls cited by Hamas, which says it tallies figures from hospital directors.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, according to Israeli officials, mostly civilians who died in the initial Hamas rampage. Israel's military on Wednesday raised the number of remaining hostages in Gaza to 222 people, including foreigners believed captured by Hamas during the incursion. Four hostages have been released.
Currently:
1. Israel vows again to destroy Hamas at a major U.N. meeting, rejecting calls for a cease-fire
2. The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah group held talks with senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad figures
3. The U.S. shares hard lessons from urban combat in Iraq and Syria as Israel prepares to invade. It's also developing contingency plans to evacuate Americans in case the war spreads
4. Burying friends, updating death lists: The morbid routine of displaced survivors of a Hamas massacre
5. Stranded at a closed border as bombs fall, foreign nationals in besieged Gaza await evacuation
ISRAELI FM RENEWS VOW TO CRUSH HAMAS. PALESTINIAN FM SAYS IT IS 'COLLECTIVE HUMAN DUTY' TO STOP THE BLOODSHED
Israel is vowing again to destroy Hamas, rejecting calls for a cease-fire from the U.N. chief, the Palestinians and many countries at a high-level U.N. meeting and saying the war in Gaza is not merely its own but "the war of the free world."
Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen also dismissed calls for "proportionality" in the country's response to Hamas' surprise attacks Oct. 7 that killed 1,400 people. More than 5,700 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, according to its Health Ministry.
Cohen told the U.N. Security Council the proportionate response to the Oct. 7 massacre is "a total destruction to the last one of the Hamas," calling the extremist group "the new Nazis."
"It is not only Israel's right to destroy Hamas. It's our duty," he said.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said he came to the meeting "to stop … the ongoing massacres being deliberately and systematically and savagely perpetrated by Israel."
"Over 2 million Palestinians are on a survival mission every day, every night," he added.
Under international law, al-Maliki said, "it is our collective human duty to stop" the Israeli attacks and bloodshed.
Source: Associated Press
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