Israel intensifies southern Gaza offensive; US, UN urge civilian protections
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should face trial for being a “war criminal,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said, slamming him as the “butcher of Gaza.”
“We are not going to let the issue of Israel having nuclear weapons be forgotten,” Erdogan said on Monday in his opening remarks at an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Istanbul.
Those who try to ignore deaths in Gaza by keeping silent, even to legitimise it under the pretext of Hamas, have no longer any words for humanity, he said at the 39th ministerial session of the OIC Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation.
“Israel is not only a murderer but also a thief,” said Erdogan, adding: “We cannot let Israel occupy Gaza once again.”
“There is a global structure that acts with the will of a few countries. UN’s corrupt structure needs to change.”
The Turkish president said Islamophobia is spreading like an epidemic in the West.
Türkiye is ready to be a guarantor country for the peace talks between Israel and Palestine, he added.
“Gaza is a Palestinian territory. Gaza belongs to Palestinians and it will remain so forever,” said the Turkish leader.
“Those who invade Gaza will seek other places tomorrow. Gaza butcher Netanyahu revealed he has expansionist ideals,” Erdogan said.
Barbarity of Israel
Criticising the UN’s response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Erdogan said the sincere efforts of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were sabotaged by Security Council members themselves.
More than 100 UN officials in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s attacks, Erdogan pointed out, adding that the UN, founded to protect global security and peace, cannot even secure its own employees from the “barbarity of Israel.”
Recalling the UN resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” between Israeli and Hamas in Gaza on October 27, Erdogan said this decision was a “valuable step in representing the conscience of humanity.”
“However, due to the existing structure of the UN, this decision became obsolete.”
He said the will of countries that voted in favour of the resolution and those that abstained was disregarded.
“Just this fact alone is sufficient to show how the two billion-strong Muslim world is being confined. There is a global structure that acts with will of a few countries. UN’s corrupt structure needs to change,” he urged.
The Israeli army resumed bombing Gaza early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian pause.
Israel launched relentless air and ground attacks on Gaza following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on October 7.
The death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza has surged to 15,523 since the start of the conflict on October 7, the Health Ministry in the besieged Palestinian enclave announced on Sunday.
The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.
A total of 120 countries voted in favour of the resolution, 14 countries voted against including Israel and the United States, while 45 others abstained.
Israel intensifies southern Gaza offensive
Israeli forces pressed ahead with their air and ground bombardment of southern Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, even as the United States and the United Nations repeatedly urged them to protect civilians.
Asked on Monday about the mounting death toll since a truce collapsed between Israel and Hamas on Friday, Israel’s closest ally the United States said it was too soon to say whether Israel was doing enough to protect civilians and that it expected Israel not to strike zones it has identified as safe.
Residents and journalists on the ground said the intense Israeli air strikes in the south of the densely populated coastal enclave included areas where Israel had told people to seek shelter.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to Israel to avoid further action that would make the already dire humanitarian situation in Hamas-run Gaza worse, and to spare civilians from more suffering.
More From FactFile: Hamas to free new wave of hostages in Gaza truce
“The Secretary-General is extremely alarmed by the resumption of hostilities between Israel and Hamas… For people ordered to evacuate, there is nowhere safe to go and very little to survive on,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
Israel largely captured the northern half of Gaza in November, and since a week-long truce collapsed on Friday they have swiftly pushed deep into the southern half.
Hamas ally Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said its fighters engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli soldiers north and east of Khan Younis, Gaza’s main southern city.
Israeli tanks have driven into Gaza across the border and cut off the main north-south route, residents said. The Israeli military said the central road out of Khan Younis to the north “constitutes a battlefield” and was now shut.
Israel on Tuesday said three of its soldiers had died in combat in Gaza on Monday, in what Army Radio described as a day of fierce battles with Hamas fighters. Seventy-eight soldiers have died in Gaza since the start of the military’s ground invasion.
Israel launched its assault to wipe out Hamas in retaliation for an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas gunmen on border towns, kibbutzim and a music festival.
Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza (UNRWA), said the resumption of Israel’s military operation was repeating “horrors from past weeks” by displacing people who had been previously displaced, overcrowding hospitals and further strangling the humanitarian operation due to limited supplies.
“We have said it repeatedly. We are saying it again. No place is safe in Gaza, whether in the south, or the southwest, whether in Rafah or in any unilaterally so-called ‘safe zone’,” he said.
The Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated calls for Israel to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure including hospitals.
“WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday.
An Israeli soldier gestures towards a tank crew member as it crosses a road, as part of the convoy, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, near Israel’s border with southern Gaza, in Israel
Displaced in a Wasteland
As many as 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have already fled their homes in the eight weeks of war that has turned the overcrowded enclave into a wasteland.
On Monday, Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of Khan Younis, indicating they should move towards the Mediterranean coast and towards Rafah, a town near the Egyptian border.
Desperate Gazans in Khan Younis packed their belongings and headed towards Rafah. Most were on foot, walking past ruined buildings in a solemn and silent procession.
In Washington, a State Department spokesperson said it was an “improvement” that Israel was seeking evacuations in targeted areas as opposed to entire cities.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington expected Israel to avoid attacking areas identified as “no-strike” zones in Gaza.
He said the U.S. had discussed with Israel how long the war with Hamas should continue, but he declined to share that timeline.
A senior Israeli official said it was taking the time to order more precise evacuations in order to limit civilian casualties, but that Israel could not rule them out altogether.
“We did not start this war. We regret civilian casualties but when you want to face evil, you have to operate,” the official said.
Over 100 of the hostages seized by Iran-backed Hamas were freed during a seven-day truce last month. Israeli authorities say seven civilians and an army colonel died in captivity, while 137 hostages remain in Gaza.
In the eight weeks of warfare, the Gazan health ministry said at least 15,899 Palestinians, 70% of them women or under 18s, have been killed. They say thousands more are missing and feared buried in rubble, with about 900 killed since the truce ended on Friday.
Israel accuses Hamas of putting civilians in danger by operating from civilian areas, including in tunnels which can only be destroyed by large bombs. Hamas denies it does so.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing U.S. officials, that Israel had assembled a system of pumps that could be used to flood Hamas tunnels.
It was not clear whether Israel would consider using the pumps before all hostages were released, according to the story.
