150 Palestinians killed in 24 hours
The health ministry in Gaza Strip said yesterday at least 150 people have been killed in 24 hours in the Palestinian territory as Israeli jets intensified attacks, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retake control of the enclave's border with Egypt.
A total of 21,822 Palestinians have been killed and 56,451 wounded in Israeli strikes in Gaza since October 7, the ministry added.
There has been no respite from Israel's air raids, artillery fire or ground fighting with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, to the despair of Palestinians surviving the onslaught.
As battles raged through the rubble of towns and refugee camps, the UN said more than 85 percent of Gaza's 2.4 million people have fled their homes.
"We were hoping that 2024 would arrive under better auspices and that we would be able to celebrate the new year at home with our families," said Mahmoud Abou Shahma in a camp for displaced people in Rafah, on the Egyptian border.
The ministry reported numerous deaths in overnight strikes on central Gaza's Zawayda and the nearby Al-Mughazi refugee camp. A former Palestinian Authority minister was also killed in an Israeli strike on his home in the enclave.
In Khan Yunis, medics at Nasser hospital described severe shortages. "The hospital is receiving a lot more (patients) than its capacity," doctor Ahmad Abu Mustafa said in footage shared by the WHO.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the growing threat of infectious diseases and the UN said Gaza is "just weeks away" from famine, reports AFP.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night that Israel's war against Hamas will last for "many months" -- until the Palestinian group has been eliminated.
"The war is at its height," Netanyahu told reporters. He said the Philadelphi Corridor buffer zone that runs along Gaza's border with Egypt must be in Israeli hands.
"It must be shut," Netanyahu said. "It is clear that any other arrangement would not ensure the demilitarisation that we seek."
International mediators -- who last month brokered a one-week truce that saw more than 100 hostages released and some aid enter Gaza -- continue in their efforts to secure a new pause in fighting.
US news outlet Axios and Israeli website Ynet, both citing unnamed Israeli officials, reported that Qatari mediators had told Israel that Hamas was prepared to resume talks on new hostage releases in exchange for a ceasefire.
A response will come "within days", chief negotiator, Muhammad al-Hindi, of Islamic Jihad, another armed group fighting alongside Hamas, said.
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