Palestine

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Battles raged across Gaza on Sunday as Israel indicated it was prepared to fight for months or longer to defeat the territory’s Hamas rulers, and a key mediator said willingness to discuss a cease-fire was fading.

Israel faces international outrage after its military offensive, with diplomatic support and arms from close ally the United States, has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. About 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced within the besieged territory, where U.N. agencies say there is no safe place to flee.

RAMALLAH/GAZA, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian Authority and Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) slammed on Saturday the U.S. veto on a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution failed to pass at a Security Council emergency meeting held late Friday after the United States cast a veto and Britain abstained, while the other 13 UNSC members voted in favor of the proposal handed in by the UAE and backed by more than 90 UN member states.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck parts of the Gaza Strip in relentless bombardment Saturday, hitting some of the dwindling bits of land it had told Palestinians to evacuate to in the territory’s south.

The strikes came a day after the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, despite its wide support. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining.

7 December 2023; MEMO: The Israeli occupation government has approved the construction of 1,738 settlement units in the southeast of occupied Jerusalem, Israeli rights group Peace Now has said.

8 December 2023; MEMO: The Al-Qassam Brigades said an Israeli soldier who had been held as a prisoner of war in Gaza was killed early today after an Israeli special forces unit struck the area he was being held, Reuters reports.

Al-Qassam identified the prisoner of war as 25-year-old Sa’ar Baruch and gave an identification number for him.

8 December 2023; MEMO: Israel has deliberately destroyed dozens of archaeological sites and ancient sites in the besieged Gaza Strip since 7 October, in a blatant attempt to target Palestinian cultural heritage.

8 December 2023; MEMO: Al-Qassam Brigades announced yesterday that its fighters had completely or partially destroyed 79 Israeli military vehicles in Gaza City over a 72-hour period.

“Our fighters have booby-trapped a tunnel entrance in the Sheikh Radwan area, and as soon as an Israeli force advanced on it, it was blown up. As a result, members of the Israeli force were killed and wounded,” the Brigades said in a statement on Telegram.

GAZA, Dec 8 (NNN-XINHUA) – The Israeli army arrested, yesterday, dozens of Palestinians, during its incursion into the town of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, said Palestinian sources.

Palestinian security sources told Xinhua that, Israeli troops made the arrests during their storming of residential neighbourhoods in Beit Lahia.

Local eyewitnesses said that, the Israeli soldiers deliberately stripped the detainees of their clothes during interrogations.

(AP) --- It’s called “Article 99.” And it hasn’t been used for decades. Until this week.

With an intensifying Israeli offensive and escalating civilian casualties, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked a rarely exercised power this week to warn the Security Council of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. He urged members to demand an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Desperation grew Thursday among Palestinians largely cut off from supplies of food and water as Israeli forces engaged in fierce urban battles with Hamas militants. Strikes in the southern Gaza town of Rafah sowed fear in one of the last places where civilians could seek refuge.