Hopes for a brief ceasefire in southern Gaza to allow foreign passport holders to leave the besieged Palestinian enclave and aid to be brought in were dashed on Monday, with Israeli bombardments intensifying ahead of an expected ground invasion according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
Residents of Hamas-ruled Gaza said the overnight strikes were the heaviest yet in nine days of conflict. Many houses were flattened and the death toll rose inexorably, they said.
Diplomatic efforts have been underway to get aid into the enclave, which has endured unrelenting Israeli bombing since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants that killed 1,300 people – the bloodiest single day in the state’s 75-year history.
Israel has imposed a full blockade and is preparing a ground invasion to enter Gaza and destroy Hamas, which has continued to fire rockets at Israel since its brief cross-border assault. Israeli troops and tanks are already massed on the border.
Authorities in Gaza said at least 2,750 people had so far been killed by the Israeli strikes, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded. A further 1,000 people were missing and believed to be under rubble.
As the humanitarian crisis deepened, with food, fuel and water running short, hundreds of tons of aid from several countries have been held up in Egypt pending a deal for its safe delivery to Gaza and the evacuation of some foreign passport holders through the Rafah border crossing.
