Israel pounds Gaza; US to block ceasefire resolution at UN

Rafah (Gaza Strip), February 18

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 18 persons overnight and into Sunday, according to medics and witnesses, as the United States said it would veto another draft UN ceasefire resolution. The US, Israel’s top ally, instead hopes to broker a ceasefire agreement and hostage release between Israel and Hamas, and envisions a wider resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back, calling Hamas’ demands “delusional” and rejecting US and international calls for a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until “total victory” over Hamas and to expand it to Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah, where more than half the enclave’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. An airstrike in Rafah overnight killed six persons, including a woman and three children, and another strike killed five men in the southern city of Khan Younis, the main target of the offensive over the past two months.

In Gaza City, which was isolated, largely evacuated and suffered widespread destruction in the initial weeks of the war, an airstrike flattened a family home, killing seven persons, including three women. The head of the World Health Organisation, meanwhile, said Nasser Hospital, the main medical centre serving southern Gaza, was no longer able to function after Israel raided the facility late last week.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a WHO team was not allowed to enter the hospital on Friday or Saturday “to assess the conditions of the patients and critical medical needs, despite reaching the hospital compound to deliver fuel alongside partners”. — AP