C T Online Desk: GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, June 10, 2024 (AFP) – The United States stepped up pressure Monday for a Gaza ceasefire with a call for a UN Security Council vote on a truce as it redeployed Washington’s top diplomat to the region scarred by eight months of war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s regional tour was preceded by further bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, with witnesses reporting overnight strikes in the centre of the strip and helicopter gunfire on ravaged Gaza City.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile faced domestic dissent, with war cabinet member Benny Gantz quitting Sunday over the premier’s handling of the war.
Washington sought to bring a ceasefire closer by tabling a draft resolution at the United Nations, calling for an “immediate ceasefire with the release of hostages” between Israel and militant group Hamas.
A staunch ally of Israel, the United States has been widely criticised for having blocked several earlier UN draft resolutions calling for a halt to the fighting.
A new push for a deal by President Joe Biden on May 31, separate from the UN, has so far failed to produce tangible results, while further doubts have been cast on a truce by an Israeli special forces raid to free hostages which killed scores of Palestinians on Saturday.
“People were screaming — young and old, women and men,” said Muhannad Thabet, 35, a resident of the crowded Nuseirat refugee camp area.
“Everyone wanted to flee the place, but the bombing was intense and anyone who moved was at risk of being killed due to the heavy bombardment and gunfire.”
The Israeli military said the extraction team and the four rescued captives came under heavy gun and grenade fire by militants, who killed one police officer, while Israel’s air force launched strikes that reduced nearby buildings to rubble.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said 274 people were killed and 698 wounded, in what it labelled the “Nuseirat massacre”, figures that could not be independently verified.
Among those were at least 64 children, 57 women and 37 elderly people, the ministry said.
