RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two houses, rescuers and hospital officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that there was no one in Gaza safe place and that Israel's offensive creates “massive obstacles” to the distribution of humanitarian aid.
Also on Saturday, the Israeli military said troops had arrested hundreds of suspected militants in Gaza last week and transferred more than 200 of them to Israel for further questioning, providing rare details about a controversial policy of mass arrests of Palestinian men. According to the army, more than 700 people with suspected links to the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been taken to Israeli prisons so far.
Israel declared war after Hamas gunmen crossed the border on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 53,000 injured in Israel's war to destroy Hamas, according to health authorities in Gaza, a besieged territory ruled by the militant Islamist group for 16 years.
Despite increasing international calls for a ceasefire, Israel has vowed to continue fighting until Hamas is destroyed and removed from power in Gaza and all hostages are freed. The Biden administration has shielded Israel at the diplomatic level. On Friday, the UN Security Council passed a watered-down resolution calling for an immediate acceleration of aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza, but not a ceasefire.
On Friday, airstrikes leveled two houses, one in Gaza City and the other in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the territory.
The attack in Gaza City killed 76 people from al-Mughrabi's family, making it one of the deadliest of the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's civil defense department. He gave the names of 16 heads of families and said the dead included women and children.
Palestinians carry the bodies of the Dhair family, killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, during their funeral in Rafah on Friday, December 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
Among those killed were Issam al-Mughrabi, a senior UN development program official, his wife and their five children.
“The loss of Issam and his family has touched us all deeply. “The U.N. and civilians in Gaza are not targets,” said Achim Steiner, the agency’s head. “This war must end.”
Later on Friday, a strike pulverized the home of Mohammed Khalifa, a local television journalist, in Nuseirat, killing him and at least 14 others, officials at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken, said. Mourners held funeral prayers in the hospital's courtyard on Saturday as rescue teams continued to search for survivors. The legs of at least two bodies were seen beneath what appeared to be a collapsed roof.
Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, citing the militants' use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel has carried out thousands of airstrikes since October 7 and has largely refrained from commenting on specific strikes.
The Israeli offensive was one of the most devastating military campaigns in modern history, displacing nearly 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million residents and leveling large swaths of the tiny coastal enclave. A report from the United Nations and other organizations said more than half a million people in Gaza – a quarter of the population – are starving this week.
A Palestinian man carries the body of his grandson, who was killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at Rafah Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said late Friday that the armed forces were expanding the ground offensive “to additional areas of the Strip, with a focus on the south.” He said operations would also continue in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, the initial focus of Israel's ground offensive. The army said it carried out airstrikes against Hamas militants in several locations in Gaza City.
The army's statement on detentions followed earlier Palestinian reports of large-scale raids of teenagers and men from homes, shelters and hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, where ground troops have established tighter control. Some of the released prisoners said they were stripped to their underwear, beaten and held for days with minimal access to water.
Hamas called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other global organizations to pressure Israeli authorities to reveal the whereabouts and conditions of hundreds of people detained in Gaza.
The Israeli military has denied the abuse allegations and said those who had no ties to militants were quickly released.
Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants in the past three weeks, including about 2,000, but has provided no evidence. It is said that 139 of his soldiers were killed in the ground offensive.
Following the UN resolution, it was not immediately clear how and when aid deliveries would be accelerated. Currently, trucks enter through two border crossings – Rafah on the border with Egypt and Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel. Both were concluded Saturday by mutual agreement between Israel, Egypt and the United Nations, Israeli officials said.
Before the Security Council vote, the United States negotiated to remove language that would have given the United Nations the authority to review aid entering the Gaza Strip. Israel says it must continue to do this itself to ensure the material does not reach Hamas.
Family and friends of Israeli soldier Lt. Yaacov Elian mourn over his grave during his funeral at Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Dec. 22, 2023. Elian, 20, was killed during Israel's ground operation in the Gaza Strip. where it has been fighting Palestinian militants in the war sparked by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday it was a mistake to measure the effectiveness of the humanitarian operation by the number of trucks.
“The real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza,” he said. He said the conditions for an effective relief operation were not in place: security, staff able to work safely, logistical capacity and the resumption of commercial activity.
Guterres reiterated his longstanding call for a humanitarian ceasefire. He expressed hope that the resolution could help, but said that “much more is needed immediately” to end the “nightmare” for the people of Gaza.
The US won a repeal of a tougher demand for an “urgent cessation of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas. It abstained from the vote, as did Russia, which wanted stricter language.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.