Scores of Palestinians have been killed and many more injured in overnight Israeli air raids on various residential neighborhoods across the Gaza Strip, as the Tel Aviv regime has upped its bombardment of the besieged enclave amid assertions that its military was “expanding” ground operations in the territory.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that scores of Palestinians lost their lives and dozens of others sustained injuries early on Sunday morning, when Israeli military aircraft struck al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
The report added that bodies were still stuck under the rubble.
Israeli warplanes also bombed a six-story house in the southern Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, killing and injuring a number of Palestinians.
In al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Israeli air strikes hit several homes and killed at least 30 citizens, while wounding many others.
Israeli strikes targeted 110 homes in the Jabalia refugee camp, located in northern Gaza, and killed at least 45 people.
Wafa also reported that Israeli aerial attacks destroyed a residential square in Bir al-Naja in northern Gaza, killing dozens.
In Khan Younis and Rafah, about 57 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes on Sunday. The majority of those who were killed were displaced.
UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Monday
Meanwhile, a UN Security Council meeting called by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has now been officially scheduled for Monday afternoon after 3 p.m. New York time (1900 GMT).
The UAE requested the meeting on Saturday after Israel expanded ground operations in Gaza.
To date, the UN Security Council has failed to reach an agreement on four different resolutions calling for a ceasefire, or shorter humanitarian pause, since the current escalation of violence began earlier this month.
Russian FM: Israeli aggression on Gaza against international law
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also that the Israeli onslaught against Gaza runs counter to international law and risks creating a catastrophe that could last decades.
Lavrov made the comments in an interview with the Belarusian state news agency Belta on Saturday.
“If Gaza is destroyed and two million inhabitants are expelled, as some politicians in Israel and abroad propose, this will create a catastrophe for many decades, if not centuries,” Lavrov warned.
“It is necessary to stop, and to announce humanitarian programs to save the population under blockade,” the top Russian diplomat pointed out.
Israel has been engaged in a ferocious war on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas and its fellow Gaza-based resistance movement, the Islamic Jihad, launched their biggest operation against the occupiers in years. The surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm came in response to the regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
The death toll since the start of the Israeli carnage has surpassed 8,000 with upwards of 20,500 Palestinians wounded. A staggering 70 percent of casualties in Gaza are children, women, and the elderly.
The ongoing Israeli offensive has pushed the Gaza Strip to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians enduring immense suffering and loss.
