Hamas on Sunday warned that no hostages would leave Gaza alive unless its demands for prisoner releases are met, while the World Health Organization said the territory’s health system was collapsing after more than two months of war.
Hamas triggered the conflict with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7 in which it killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and dragged around 240 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel has responded with a relentless military offensive that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 17,997 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
As aid groups warn the territory is on the brink of being overwhelmed by disease and starvation, the head of the United Nations decried a divided and “paralysed” Security Council for failing to agree on a ceasefire.
“Gaza’s health system is on its knees and collapsing,” said World Health Organization chief TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, with only 14 of 36 hospitals functioning at any capacity.
WHO’s executive board on Sunday adopted a resolution calling for immediate, unimpeded aid deliveries.
The UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced roughly half of them children many forced south and running out of safe places to go.
AFP visited the bombed-out ruins of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital and found at least 30,000 people taking refuge amid the rubble after Israeli forces raided the medical facility last month.
“Our life has become a living hell, there’s no electricity, no water, no flour, no bread, no medicine for the children who are all sick,” said MOHAMMED DALOUL, 38, who fled there with his wife and three children.
In a televised statement, a Hamas spokesman said Israel will not receive their prisoners alive without an exchange and negotiation and meeting the demands of the resistance.
Senior Hamas official BASSEM NEIM said in late November the movement was “ready to release all soldiers in exchange for all our prisoners”.
Israel says there are still 137 hostages in Gaza, while activists say around 7,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails.
On Sunday, a source close to Hamas and Islamic Jihad told AFP both groups were engaged in “fierce clashes” with Israeli forces near Khan Yunis, where an AFP journalist also reported heavy strikes, as well as Jabalia and Gaza City’s Shejaiya district in the north.
Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYU called on Hamas to give up.
The army said Sunday it struck more than 250 targets in 24 hours, including “a Hamas military communications site”, “underground tunnel shafts” in southern Gaza, and a Hamas military command centre in Shejaiya.
It says 98 soldiers have died and around 600 wounded in the Gaza campaign.
Some 7,000 “terrorists” have been killed, according to National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi.
“Hamas should not exist, because they are not human beings, after what I saw they did,” Menahem, a 22-year-old soldier wounded on October 7, told AFP during a military-organised tour that did not allow him to give his surname.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Security Council’s “authority and credibility were severely undermined”, after the United States blocked a ceasefire resolution on Friday.
Qatar, where Hamas’s top leadership is based, said it was still working on a new truce like the week-long ceasefire it helped mediate last month that saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners and humanitarian aid.
But Israel’s relentless bombardment was “narrowing the window” for success, said Qatari Prime Minister SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN ABDURAHMAN AL THANI.
US Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN on Sunday again rejected a ceasefire.