–Gaza health officials say more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli strikes continue unabated
DM Monitoring
RAMALLAH/ GAZA: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded an immediate Israeli ceasefire at a meeting with top US diplomat Antony Blinken on Sunday, as Gaza’s health ministry said dozens died in a strike on a refugee camp overnight.
Blinken, who has repeatedly dismissed the idea of a ceasefire by Israel for fear it would benefit Hamas, was making an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank, as part of effort to try and ensure the Israel-Hamas war does not spread in the region.
His visit to Ramallah took place as people sifted through rubble for victims or survivors at the Maghazi refugee camp refugee camp in Gaza.
“All night I and the other men were trying to pick the dead from the rubble. We got children, dismembered, torn apart flesh,” said Saeed al-Nejma, 53, adding that he had been asleep with his family in their single-storey house when the blast hit his neighbourhood.
A spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said earlier on Sunday that the Israeli military had struck the camp overnight, killing at least 47 people.
In a separate attack, 21 Palestinians from one family, including women and children, were killed in Israeli strikes targeting Gaza overnight, the health ministry said.
‘No words’
“We demand that you stop them from committing these crimes immediately,” Abbas told Blinken, demanding an “immediate ceasefire” from Israel.
“There are no words to describe the war of genocide and destruction to which our Palestinian people are being subjected in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli war machine, without regard to the rules of international law,” Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Abbas as telling Blinken.
Foreign ministers from Qatar, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates met Blinken in Amman on Saturday and also pushed for Washington to convince Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
Pope Francis joined calls for peace. “Stop in the name of God,” he said Sunday, calling for humanitarian aid and help for the injured in order to ease the “very grave” situation in Gaza.
But Blinken has said a ceasefire would benefit Hamas, allowing it to regroup and attack again. Instead, the United States are pushing for localised pauses in fighting to allow in humanitarian aid and for people to leave the densely populated Gaza Strip.
“The Secretary reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance and resumption of essential services in Gaza,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Abbas has had little sway in Gaza since the Hamas takeover of the enclave in 2007.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas, not civilians, and that the Islamist Palestinian group is using residents as human shields.
Gaza health officials said on Sunday more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which began when Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 others hostage.
Evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing to Egypt have been suspended since Saturday, two Egyptian security sources and a medical source told Reuters.
One of the security sources and the medical source said the evacuations were suspended after an Israeli strike on Friday on an ambulance in Gaza being used to transport injured people. The Israeli military said, without showing evidence, the vehicle was carrying Hamas fighters.
