Dozens of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on southern Gaza

The air and ground war, launched in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel, has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, displaced some 1.9 million, demolished much of northern Gaza and sparked attacks on US and Israeli targets across the region.

Attacks on ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have led major shipping companies — as well as the oil and gas giant BP — to suspend trade through the vital waterway, prompting the US and its allies to launch a new mission to counter the threat.

But after meeting Israeli officials on Monday, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said he was “not here to dictate timelines or terms”.

His remarks signalled that the US would continue shielding Israel from growing international calls for a ceasefire as the United Nations Security Council was set to hold another vote on Tuesday, and that Washington would keep providing vital military aid for one of the 21st century’s deadliest military campaigns.

A strike on a home in Rafah where displaced people were sheltering killed at least 25 people, including a two-year-old boy and his newborn sister, and another strike killed at least three people, according to Associated Press journalists who saw the bodies arrive at two local hospitals early on Tuesday.

Rafah, which is in the southern part of Gaza where Israel has told Palestinians to seek shelter, has been repeatedly bombarded in recent days, as Israel has struck what it says are militant targets across the territory, often killing large numbers of civilians.

The military said on Tuesday it had killed a prominent Hamas financier in an airstrike in Rafah, without specifying when it happened or if others were killed or hurt.

Meanwhile, fierce battles also raged in northern Gaza, where Hamas continues to put up stiff resistance across what is now a wasteland, seven weeks after Israeli tanks and troops stormed in.

Israel’s bombardment of the urban Jabaliya refugee camp on Tuesday killed at least 27 people and wounded more than 100, according to Munir al-Boursh, a senior official at the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

In central Gaza, at least 15 people were killed in strikes overnight, according to hospital records. Among the dead were a mother and her four children, who were killed as they sat around a fire, according to an Associated Press reporter who filmed the aftermath.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 214 bodies were brought into the territory’s hospitals over the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll since the start of the war to more than 19,600.

It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Hamas has continued to put up stiff resistance and lob rockets at Israel.

The militants said they fired a barrage toward Tel Aviv on Tuesday and air raid sirens went off in central Israel.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The war began after Hamas and other militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel and abducted 240 others.

Israel’s military says 131 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive.

It says it has killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.

Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying it uses them as human shields, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes.

Israeli forces raided the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City overnight, according to the church that operates it, destroying a wall at its front entrance and detaining most of its staff.

The facility was the scene of an explosion early in the war that killed dozens of Palestinians, and which an Associated Press investigation later determined was likely caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

Don Binder, a pastor at St George’s Anglican Cathedral, which runs the hospital, said the raid left just two doctors, four nurses and two caretakers to tend to more than 100 seriously wounded patients, with no running water or electricity.

“It has been a great mercy for the many wounded in Gaza City that we were able to keep our Ahli Anglican Hospital open for so long,” Mr Binder wrote in a Facebook post late on Monday.

“That ended today.”

He said an Israeli tank was parked on the rubble at the hospital’s entrance, blocking anyone from entering or leaving.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Forces have raided other hospitals across Gaza, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes.

Hospital staff have denied the allegations and accused Israel of endangering critically ill and wounded civilians.

The military said on Tuesday that soldiers found an explosive device inside a clinic in Shijaiyah, a Gaza City neighbourhood that has seen heavy fighting in recent days.

It did not say whether the clinic was operational and in footage released by the military it appeared to have been abandoned.

The UN Security Council has delayed to Tuesday a vote on an Arab-sponsored resolution calling for a halt to hostilities to allow unhindered access to humanitarian aid.

Diplomats said negotiations were taking place to get the US to abstain or vote for the resolution after it vetoed an earlier call for a ceasefire.

France, the UK and Germany — some of Israel’s closest allies — joined global calls for a ceasefire over the weekend.

In Israel, protesters have called for negotiations with Hamas to facilitate the release of scores of hostages still held by the group.

CIA director William Burns met in Warsaw with the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the prime minister of Qatar on Monday, the first known meeting of the three since the ceasefire and the release of some 100 hostages in a deal they helped broker.

But US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the talks were not “at a point where another deal is imminent”.

Hamas and other militants are still holding an estimated 129 captives.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will keep fighting until it ends Hamas rule in Gaza, crushes its military capabilities and frees all the hostages taken during the October 7 attack.

For now, at least, he seems to have full US support for a campaign that could last months or years.

Later on Tuesday the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court seeking immediate access to the Gaza Strip for the international media.

The association said multiple requests to the Israeli Government Press Office, the Israeli military and Defence Ministry received “no substantive response.”

In previous wars, Israel has also limited access to Gaza for journalists, but never for so long. The Palestinian territory has been completely sealed off since Israel declared war on Hamas more than two months ago.

“Freedom of the press is a basic civil right in a democratic society,” the FPA said in a statement. “We also believe it is in the public interest to get a fuller picture of conditions inside Gaza after 10 weeks of extremely limited and highly controlled access.”

The Foreign Press Association represents 130 media outlets in more than 30 countries, including The Associated Press, that operate in Israel and the Palestinian territories.