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JERUSALEM – International pressure on Israel to end its war in Gaza intensified on Sunday as Israeli tanks and troops advanced into the center of Khan Younis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, and diplomats and U.N. officials warned ever more forcefully Food shortages and crowds warned of displacement of nearly 2 million Palestinians.
“What we see in Gaza is not just the killing of innocent people and the destruction of their livelihoods, but a systematic attempt to rid Gaza of its people,” Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday at the Doha Forum, a global political conference in Qatar.
Safadi, whose nation signed a peace treaty with Israel, continued to denounce Israeli actions in Gaza as “under… [the] “There is no legal definition of genocide,” Portal reported, prompting Israel to condemn the comments as “outrageous” and “false.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also reiterated his call for Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza as part of its military campaign against Hamas.
“We believe that protecting civilians must be a priority and ensuring that humanitarian assistance can reach everyone who needs it,” Blinken said during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I think the intent is there, but the results don’t always show up,” he said.
But Blinken's pleas have done little to stop the suffering of civilians in Gaza, Palestinians say, and at the same time the United States has increased its military and diplomatic support for Israel.
In recent days, the Biden administration vetoed a draft U.N. resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire and authorized the sale of tank ammunition and related equipment to Israel, citing an emergency declaration to bypass Congress.
The death toll in Gaza has risen to nearly 18,000, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which said on Sunday that 297 people had been killed in the past 24 hours.
In a statement, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra described the situation in hospitals in the south as “catastrophic and unbearable” and said: “The medical teams have lost control given the large number of wounded.”
Nearly 50,000 people have been injured in Gaza since the war began on October 7, Qudra said, as Hamas carried out a brutal attack in Israel that killed at least 1,200 people.
On Sunday at the World Health Organization: Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the health system in Gaza was “on its knees” and called for a ceasefire as “the only way to truly protect and promote the health of the people of Gaza.”
Other WHO officials outlined worrying signs of a system on the verge of collapse at a special meeting to address the crisis in Gaza: new cases of acute jaundice and meningitis; the rapid spread of respiratory infections; bloody diarrhea; and patients are dying due to severe drug shortages.
Supporting the health system in Gaza is “almost impossible under the current circumstances,” Tedros said.
The WHO Executive Board later adopted a resolution calling for the “immediate, sustained and unhindered flow of humanitarian assistance, including access for medical personnel.”
As board members deliberated in Geneva, the United States said it could not “accept” the draft resolution, citing its “disappointment” that the text did not mention Hamas' attack on Israel. It did not object to the application.
The Israeli military has accused Hamas of using medical facilities as “command and control centers” and has made hospitals the focus of its campaign in the northern Gaza Strip. It has besieged and forcibly evacuated several health centers in the north, including the main Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, but has so far provided little evidence to support its central claim that Hamas used the facilities to direct operations against Israel.
“All hospitals in the north are out of service,” said Qudra, reached by phone on Sunday.
Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday that its forces were “fighting fiercely” in several locations, including Khan Younis in the south and Shejaiya and Jabalya in the north.
“These are the priorities of Hamas,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a briefing on Sunday.
He addressed a stream of images that have emerged from the northern Gaza Strip in recent days showing dozens of detainees stripped to their underwear, some of them blindfolded and with their hands tied with cable ties. Some friends and family members of the men shown in the photos said they had no connection to Hamas or other armed groups.
“Not all of them are members of Hamas or terrorist organizations,” Hagari said of the detainees. But, he said, the IDF requires them to undress to prove they are not wearing explosive belts. “It’s something we’ve been doing in combat for years.”
He added that the photos and videos were not officially released by the IDF. But the images, many of which were broadcast and reported by Israeli media, sparked concern in Israel.
Israel's National Security Council Chairman Tzachi Hanegbi suggested on Sunday that there would be no more photos of Gazans surrendering to IDF forces in their underwear.
“It’s no use,” Hanegbi said in an interview with Israel’s Kan Radio. “I think you won’t see images like this again in the future.”
Mahmoud Almadhoun was arrested by the IDF in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on December 7 and said he was made to sit on the ground in his underwear for hours before Israeli troops tied his hands and loaded him and dozens of others onto trucks.
“None of the people they arrested were Hamas or fighters of any kind,” he said in an interview after his release.
“When we asked for water, they insulted us,” he said. “When we asked for food, they insulted us. They kicked us constantly. We didn't get any water. They would throw sand in our eyes.”
According to the United Nations, more than 90 percent of the population, or about 1.9 million people, have been displaced within the Gaza Strip. The influx of families fleeing to Rafah in the south has overwhelmed aid agencies and local infrastructure. People are sleeping on the streets or in makeshift camps with little or no food, water or sanitation, aid groups say.
Palestinians feel “completely abandoned” by the international community, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees, said at the Doha forum on Sunday.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy on Sunday blamed the lack of aid on Hamas, which he said was stealing supplies from civilians, and international organizations, which he said could not distribute aid as quickly as Israel thought it would inspected entry into the Gaza Strip.
“Israel has the capacity to inspect more trucks carrying food, water, medicine and shelter than are currently entering Gaza,” Levy said at a briefing.
“This crisis is not about the number of trucks going to Gaza. “Israel, as an occupying power, has a duty to ensure that adequate hygiene and public health standards, as well as food and medical supplies, are available to the occupying population,” Lynn Hastings, UN humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories, said in a statement Sunday . “Israel must enable the humanitarian community to safely deliver assistance within and across the Gaza Strip.”
Meanwhile, Gaza's Ministry of Health and other medical officials said they were registering new cases of acute hepatitis, scabies, measles and upper respiratory tract infections, mostly in children.
Infectious diseases are spreading quickly, said Imad al-Hams, a doctor at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, as people crowd into tiny pockets of land to escape advancing Israeli forces.
George reported from Doha, Harb from London and Balousha from Amman, Jordan.