Israel keeps up its ruthless attack on Gaza while the US vetoes a UN ceasefire proposal

On Saturday, Israel continued its assault on the beleaguered Palestinian territory of Gaza, following the US’s obstruction of an unprecedented UN attempt to demand a truce in the two-month battle.

Following the announcement by the Palestinian health ministry that 17,487 individuals, predominantly women and children, had died in Gaza as of late, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority promptly denounced the US veto.

Six persons were murdered in an Israeli raid on the southern city of Khan Yunis, while five more were killed in an incident that occurred in Rafah, the ministry announced on Saturday.

⚡️MINDBLOWING: Hamas published a new video showing scenes of Hamas clashing with military vehicles, including Merkava tanks, penetrating the Gaza City axes. pic.twitter.com/7kzzO4CPwq

— Arya – آریا 🇮🇷 (@AryJeay) December 8, 2023

Large tracts of Gaza have been reduced to rubble, and according to the UN, 80% of the population has been forced to flee. Severe shortages of fuel, food, water, and medication have also been reported.

“The tent is tiny, and it’s really cold.” “All I have are the clothes I wear; I am unsure of what the next course of action will be,” stated Mahmud Abu Rayan, a northern refugee from Beit Lahia.

The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Friday that would have demanded an immediate cessation of hostilities.

The resolution, according to US ambassador Robert Wood, “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground” and was “divorced from reality”.

The truce “would prevent the collapse of the Hamas terrorist organization, which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip,” according to Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

The US rejection of the ceasefire proposal was harshly criticized by Hamas on Saturday, branding it as “a direct participation of the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing”.

It was described as “a disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy, and displace” by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh.

Humanitarian organizations quickly denounced the veto, claiming that the Security Council was “complicit in the ongoing slaughter” (Doctors Without Borders, MSF).

The Israeli military revealed footage of its strikes from naval vessels in the Mediterranean on Friday, claiming to have hit 450 targets in Gaza in less than a day.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, there have been forty Palestinian deaths in the north, close to Gaza City, and more deaths in Jabalia and Khan Yunis, the main city in the south.

Speaking on Friday, UN chief Antonio Guterres stated that “the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss” after two months of fighting and savage Israeli bombardment.

“People are desperate, fearful and angry,” he stated. “All this takes place amid a spiralling humanitarian nightmare.”

The battle has forced 1.9 million Gazans to flee, with many of them moving south, transforming Rafah, which is close to the Egyptian border, into a sizable camp.

The United Nations humanitarian organization OCHA reported that just 14 out of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were operating at all.

⚡️WATCH: Al-Quds Brigades published a new video showing scenes of targeting israeli military vehicles including Merkava tanks on the incursion axes towards Gaza City. pic.twitter.com/vpPQs24vT2

— Arya – آریا 🇮🇷 (@AryJeay) December 8, 2023

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday that Washington feels Israel should be doing more to safeguard civilians in the conflict as the number of civilian casualties rises.

“There is no doubt that more can be done to lessen the number of civilian casualties. And to that end, we’re going to continue collaborating with our Israeli counterparts,” he declared.

Six Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers on Friday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the health ministry of the region.

Israel declared on Friday that 91 of its troops had died in Gaza. It’s likely that there were more casualties in reality.

“Numerous terrorists” were slain in the operation, it said, adding that two more people were hurt in an attempt to free the captives that failed over night.

Hamas produced a video claiming to show the body, which could not be independently verified, and claimed that a hostage had died in the disastrous Israeli rescue attempt.

Fears of a larger regional confrontation were heightened on Friday by an attack on the US embassy in Iraq.

To the scores of previous rocket and drone strikes by resistance groups against American or coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria, salvoes of rockets were fired against the mission in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone.

In a related development, a war monitor said that an Israeli drone attack on a car carrying three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian civilian killed them on Friday.

A draft resolution was presented by over a dozen World Health Organization member nations on Friday, urging Israel to uphold its legal commitments to protect humanitarian workers in Gaza.

At a special meeting of the WHO Executive Board on Sunday, the draft resolution’s wording is scheduled to be reviewed in relation to “the health situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Bolivia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen were among those who put out the proposal.

In addition to being signatories to the proposal, Palestinian officials are also WHO observers.

The member nations voiced their “grave concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, especially the military operations in the Gaza Strip” .

They demanded that Israel “respect and protect” hospitals and other medical institutions, as well as medical and humanitarian personnel who are only engaged in performing medical activities.

Separately, Gaza’s health system was in dire straits and could not afford to lose even one hospital bed or another ambulance, according to WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, who spoke to reporters on Friday.

“The situation is getting more and more horrible by the day… beyond belief, literally,” he stated.

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA said late on Thursday that only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity.