GAZA STRIP, Palestine
Fighting raged across Gaza and Israeli units raided the West Bank on Sunday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected calls for post-war "Palestinian sovereignty." Alongside fierce fighting in southern Gaza and across the besieged territory, strikes in Syria and Iraq raised fears of a wider conflagration.
Hamas-run Gaza's health
ministry reported at least 165 people killed over the previous 24 hours -- more
than double Friday's toll.
An AFP correspondent reported
gunfire, air strikes and tank shelling that was especially heavy in Khan Yunis,
souther Gaza's main city.
Witnesses also told AFP that
Israeli boats were bombarding Gaza City and other areas in the north early on
Sunday.
In Rafah, near the border with
Egypt, at least five people were killed in a strike that hit what the Gaza
health ministry said was a civilian car.
Israel is pressing its push
southwards against Hamas, after the military said in early January the
militants' command structure in northern Gaza had been dismantled, leaving only
isolated fighters.
But Hamas has also reported
heavy combat in the north of Gaza as Israel's military said its troops, backed
by air and naval support, were striking militant infrastructure throughout the
Palestinian territory.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented October attacks that resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's relentless
bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 24,927 people in Gaza,
mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Violence has also surged in
the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the military said it had demolished two
houses in Hebron that it said had belonged to two Palestinian gunmen who had
carried out an attack on a road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem in November.
The official Palestinian news
agency Wafa reported clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters in
the West Bank village of Maithalun, south of Jenin, as well as in the West Bank
towns of Arura and Qalqilya.
The United States, which
provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, has urged it to take
more care to protect civilians but they have disagreed over Gaza's future
governance.
Netanyahu and US President Joe
Biden discussed the post-war future of Gaza in a call on Friday, their first in
almost a month.
Biden said it was still
possible Netanyahu could agree to some form of Palestinian state, but
Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Saturday Israel "must retain
security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to
Israel."
That, it said, was "a
requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty."
UN Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres said at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda the Palestinian
right to statehood "must be recognised by all" and that its denial
was "unacceptable."
The UN agency for Palestinian
refugees UNRWA says about 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza, with
about one million crowded into the Rafah area.
The UN humanitarian agency
OCHA reported just 15 bakeries operating across Gaza and that the availability
of water "is shrinking every day."
UN agencies have warned better
aid access is needed urgently as famine and disease loom.
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