254 Palestinians killed in 24 hours1,000 missing under rubble as Israel pounds Gaza

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: As Gaza’s hospital morgues overflow with victims killed in Israel’s bombardment triggered by a deadly Hamas attack, even an ice-cream truck has been used to hold corpses before their burial.

More than 1,000 people are missing under the rubble of buildings that were destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza, the Palestinian civil defence team said. In a statement, the civil defence team said many others were pulled alive out of the rubble, 24 hours after buildings were struck.

Israel has been pounding Gaza targets for days, seeking to wipe out Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel. Israel’s air strikes have claimed at least 2,750 lives in Gaza, where mortuaries with capacity only for dozens are filling up more quickly than relatives can claim them. According to the government office in Gaza 254 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours. About 64 percent of all those killed are women and children. 37 medical staff, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, were killed.

The bombardment in northern Gaza and in the south, in Khan Younis and Rafah, has not stopped since Monday morning. Inside the overwhelmed hospital, the situation is deteriorating. According to the medical staff, they have come to a point where they have to decide between patients: Who to save and who to let go because of the lack of capacity, medical resources and equipment.

As thousands massed on the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, Netanyahu ruled out a temporary ceasefire to allow aid supplies in or foreigners out. On Monday evening, strikes hit an area near the crossing, an AFP reporter said. The presence of hostages is complicating any ground offensive involving tens of thousands of regular Israeli troops and reservists, who are massed at the border waiting for the order to go in.

Hamas’s armed wing said it fired rockets towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The rocket alert sirens interrupted the opening of Knesset’s winter session, forcing members take to shelter. Also US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet sheltered in a bunker for five minutes when air raid sirens went off in Tel Aviv, according to spokesperson Matt Miller.

Israel warned of a long but winning war against Hamas as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his second visit. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that both Israel and the rest of the world could “see with their own eyes” the robust US support. “Let me tell you, Mr Secretary, this will be a long war, the price will be high, but we are going to win -- for Israel, for the Jewish people and for the values that both countries believe in,” Gallant told Blinken after talks at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv. Blinken replied that the United States was “deeply committed to Israel’s right -- indeed, its obligation -- to defend itself”. “You have -- and will always have -- the support of the United States,” Blinken said. The top US diplomat met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role.

US President Joe Biden abruptly cancelled a domestic political trip to meet with his national security team as he weighed an invitation to go to Israel to show support as it wages war against Hamas. Biden, was due to visit Colorado but stayed at the White House at the last minute for briefings amid mounting fears the conflict could escalate into a wider Middle East war. The White House confirmed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had invited Biden, but said there were no travel plans yet. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were “briefed by their national security team on the latest updates in the wake of Hamas’s abhorrent attack in Israel and the resulting conflict in Gaza,” the White House said. CIA chief Bill Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan led the briefing, which was also joined by Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, it said.

Also, the Wall Street Journal citing unnamed defence officials, has reported that the US military has earmarked approximately 2,000 service members for a potential deployment to Israel. If deployed, the troops would not be used for combat but would be assigned to advise and offer medical support to their Israeli counterparts, among other tasks, the newspaper said.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced stiff resistance from the Arab world’s most powerful strongmen on Sunday, trying to convince Egypt’s Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to embrace Washington’s view of the Israel-Hamas conflict, despite deep public sympathies for the Palestinian cause in the respective countries. “I heard a lot of good ideas about some of the things we need to do moving forward,” Blinken told reporters on Sunday following his meetings with the two leaders. But differences of views emerged immediately on Israel’s right to wage a massive offensive in Gaza, which both Sisi and Mohammed raised concerns about.

In Riyadh, the Saudi ruler kept Blinken waiting several hours for a meeting presumed to happen in the evening but which the crown prince only showed up for the next morning. Once the meeting began, Mohammed “stressed” the need to stop the military operations “that claimed the lives of innocent people” and lift the “siege of Gaza” that has left the Palestinian territory without water, electricity or fuel, according to the Saudi summary of the meeting. The crown prince also called for a halt in the “current escalation” in the conflict, a direct contradiction of US policy, which has backed Israel to pursue its maximalist goal of eradicating Hamas.

A leaked State Department memo, confirmed by The Washington Post and first published by HuffPost, warned US diplomats from using the phrases “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm” as the words did not comport with current US policy. But efforts to convince Riyadh to condemn Hamas have failed thus far, and the Saudi foreign ministry has denounced Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza, calling it an assault on “defenseless civilians.” “Egypt has put in place a lot of material support for people in Gaza, and Rafah will be opened,” Blinken said about his discussions with Sisi on the border. “We’re putting in place with the United Nations, with Egypt, with Israel, with others, the mechanism by which to get the assistance in, and to get it to people who need it.” The United States and Egypt are conveying different messages about the conflict itself.

During Blinken’s meeting at the presidential palace in Cairo, Sisi said Israel’s assaults have exceeded “the right of self-defence,” and turned into “collective punishment.” The Egyptian president also commented on Blinken’s recent remarks in Israel in which the US diplomat invoked his own Jewish heritage in explaining his understanding of Jewish oppression. “You said that you are a Jewish person and I am an Egyptian person who grew up next to Jews in Egypt,” Sisi said. “They have never been subjected to any form of oppression or targeting and it has never happened in our region that Jews were targeted in recent or old history.” Blinken responded to Sisi saying “I come as a human being” who is appalled by Hamas atrocities.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the entire Middle East region was “on the verge of the abyss. Iran has warned Israel about the potential for the conflict to spread in the volatile region. That has prompted Western governments, including Germany whose chancellor heads to Israel on Tuesday, to urge Tehran not to fan the flames of the conflict. But, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said “time is running out for political solutions”. Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, after talks with his counterparts in Malaysia, Pakistan and Tunisia, he warned that the “probable spread of war in other fronts is approaching an inevitable stage”.

Lebanese authorities should take all necessary measures to avert a war with Israel, France’s foreign minister said in Beirut, following repeated exchanges of fire along the shared frontier. Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and briefed him on several talks with leaders from the region and Palestinian Authority. “The Israeli side was in particular informed of the essential points of telephone correspondences that took place today with the leaders of Palestine, Egypt, Iran and Syria,” the Kremlin said in a statement. The Kremlin statement said Putin had voiced concern in his calls about “a catastrophic increase in the number of civilian victims and the aggravation of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.

Additionally, the aid agencies called for vital humanitarian supplies to be allowed into the Gaza Strip, warning time was running out to save millions of people as water supplies dried up and food and fuel stocks dwindled. The regional director of the World Health Organization, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, meanwhile gave a stark warning about the situation. “There are 24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left” in Gaza, he told AFP in an interview in Cairo. If aid is not allowed in, doctors will have to “prepare death certificates for their patients”, he added. The European Union will launch a humanitarian air corridor to Gaza through Egypt with the first flights expected this week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. A Gulf Cooperation Council meeting of foreign ministers is to be held today (Tuesday), while another summit on the situation “and the future of the Palestinian cause and peace process” will take place in Cairo on Saturday.

Moreover, Progressive US lawmakers have introduced a resolution calling for “an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine”. The measure – backed by more than a dozen Democratic House members, including Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar – is unlikely to pass, but it highlights growing calls in Washington for a ceasefire in Gaza.“We must do everything in our power to end this ongoing violence,” Congressman Jamaal Bowman, another co-sponsor of the resolution, said in a statement. “Our actions should proceed on the basis of recognizing our shared humanity, including rejecting violence in all forms and pursuing an urgent ceasefire and de-escalation so we can save civilian lives.”