Israel-Palestine live: Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal, vows ‘total victory’
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Israel's foreign minister said on Monday he had cancelled meetings with the head of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (Unrwa) and called on him to resign following allegations that some UN staff were involved in the 7 October attacks on Israel.
"I have just cancelled the meetings of Unrwa head Philippe Lazzarini with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel," Foreign Minister Israel Katz said.
Israel is yet to provide any details or evidence that staff were involved in the attacks.
Residents in west Gaza City told Middle East Eye on Monday that Israeli forces have been bombing the area without allowing residents to flee, or providing safe zones or passages.
“The occupation forces sent quadcopters with microphones demanding us to leave western Gaza City without providing us with a safe passage to flee,” Yara Badr al-Din said.
The areas which have been bombed include tal al-Hawa, eastern and western Remal and the al-Sabra neighbourhood.
"The Israeli tanks are now very back to the Al-Senaa area, Al-Shefa St. and Ansar. The majority of people around us decided to flee to eastern Gaza City, but the east still has occupation forces and vehicles, making it unsafe. We are trapped in our house and have decided to stay at home," she continued.
The 32-year-old called the renewed bombing, after the Israeli withdrawal, a “betrayal.”
"The Israeli forces withdrew from western Gaza already, and families started moving back to our houses, only to be shocked when the tanks returned yesterday. My sister was about to return to her apartment in the Cairo-Mushaha residential tower, but it was bombed yesterday. I am grateful she was not there yet," she said.
Renewed Israeli air strikes on residential areas in western Gaza City have left residents trapped in their homes and in shock at the devastation.
Israeli forces withdrew from the area for a short period of time before coming back and targeting people.
“Last night felt like day one in the war,” Aseel Zein al-Din told Middle East Eye.
“At around 6pm, the bombardment started throughout the city, it shook our house. We did not have internet connectivity, so we did not know where to flee,” the 23-year-old added.
Reporting by MEE correspondent in Gaza
At least 26,637 Palestinians have been killed and 65,387 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement on Monday.
In the past 24 hours 215 Palestinians were killed and 300 injured, the ministry added.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Monday that Israel has killed at least 215 Palestinians in air strikes in the last 24 hours.
An MEE correspondent in Gaza has reported a mass exodus of people from the western areas of Gaza City, including Al-Shati Camp, Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Al-Nasr Street neighbourhoods, the Ansar areas, the universities, and the shelters in the Al Rimal area towards northern and eastern areas.
At least three civilians have been killed and four injured by Israeli forces while trying to evacuate a body near Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, the Wafa news agency reported on Monday.
The hospital has been under siege for eight days, amid ongoing shelling and gunfire around the site.
Palestine Red Crescent (PRCS) posted on X that Israeli forces are targeting "anyone moving near the hospital" and that their emergency teams are unable to reach them due to the gunfire.
They added that the surgical ward at the hospital has stopped all operations due to a lack of oxygen supplies.
Palestinians fleeing the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis through a supposedly “safe corridor” are being detained, humiliated and sometimes taken away to unknown locations by the Israeli military, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to Middle East Eye.
Early on Saturday morning, the Israeli army ordered civilians remaining in Khan Younis to travel further south to the border town of Rafah and al-Mawasi, an area close by. The military said Palestinians could travel through what it called a “safe corridor”, but scores of civilians have since been detained there.
READ MORE: Palestinians detained and abused in Israel's 'safe corridor' from Khan Younis
Germany has denounced an Israeli conference about the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian enclave.
"The Return to Gaza" conference was held on Sunday and was attended by at least 12 Israeli ministers.
German foreign ministry spokesperson said that the proposals were "unacceptable" and "contribute to a worsening of the situation in the current conflict, and clearly violate international law.
“We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the participation of parts of the Israeli government at this resettlement conference, and clearly reject the statements made there.”
Two Syrian civilians have been killed in an Israeli air strike targeting members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) in the Sayyida Zeinab neighbourhood of Damascus, according to Syrian and Iranian sources.
The victims worked at the targeted building, with more people likely to have been killed near the site, the Tasnim news agency and other IRGC affiliated media reported.
According to the Syrian defence ministry, an Israeli strike launched from the occupied Golan Heights targeting southern Damascus killed and injured several civilians.
Following western attempts to throttle humanitarian aid to Gaza, Unrwa has warned that the body will run out of money by February.
“If the funding is not resumed, Unrwa will not be able to continue its services and operations across the region, including in Gaza, beyond the end of February,” a spokesperson for the agency said.
A number of countries - including the US, Germany and Britain - have paused funding to the aid agency in the wake of unproven allegations that 12 Unrwa staff were involved in the 7 October assault by Hamas in southern Israel.
The western enemies of the Palestinian people are clamouring over how to invent a new Palestinian leadership.
They imagine this leadership would continue all the services that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has provided to Israel and the West since 1993, only this time, it would maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
Crucially, these western conspirators fail to acknowledge that the PA’s function as Israel’s chief collaborator is precisely why it lost legitimacy among Palestinians. Rather, they blame its corruption and misrule in the West Bank, and before 2006, in Gaza, as if this misrule is not directly tied to its collaborationist role with Israel and its western allies.
The US has recently been market-testing proposals ventriloquised by some Arab states and the anti-Palestinian mainstream western press.
Some suggest a new Palestinian government that would include a demilitarised Hamas, purged of its commitment to armed struggle against Jewish supremacy and settler-colonialism. Others insist that while the PA must be reformed, there would be no place in it for Hamas.
Read more: Why western plans for another Palestinian client regime will fail
At least two Palestinians were killed on Monday following an Israeli raid in the town of Dura, south of Hebron, reported the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The Palestinian health ministry said Muhannad Ismail Al-Fasfous, 18, succumbed to chest wounds sustained from Israeli gunfire.
Moataz Mahmoud Atbeish, 30, was killed as a result of serious head wounds, it added.
Three Palestinians have been killed and four injured at al-Amal Hospital after they tried to evacuate the body of a woman from the premises, the Palestine Red Crescent said on Monday.
All were displaced Palestinians sheltering inside the hospital while it was under siege. The body of the woman “remains on the ground just metres away from al-Amal Hospital”, it said in statement on X.
Several countries, including the US and the UK, suspended funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) on Friday, in a move which has been condemned by Palestinian officials.
The development came after Israel alleged that 12 out of the 30,000 employees at Unrwa were involved in the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October.
On Friday, Unrwa said it had severed ties with a number of employees and launched an investigation.
"The Israeli authorities have provided Unrwa with information about the alleged involvement of several Unrwa employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on October 7," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of Unrwa, said on Friday.
"To protect the agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay."
