Israel stepped up its military offensive in Gaza on Sunday even as international pressure increased to find a peaceful solution to the conflict with the Hamas militant group.
Hamas-run local authorities in the Gaza Strip said that between a bombing in the Jabalia refugee camp and the strikes in the town of Deir al-Balah, some 40 people had been killed in the enclave on Sunday.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that Israeli forces carried out “a targeted raid on Hamas’ Deir al-Balah Battalion post and seized intelligence materials.” The Israeli army also said anti-rocket sirens sounded in the communities near the Gaza Strip and in the northern town of Margaliot, near the border with Lebanon.
“We will fight until the end. We will achieve all of our aims — eliminating Hamas, freeing all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will not again become a center for terrorism,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
A World Health Organization team that visited Gaza’s largest hospital described the situation as a “bloodbath, with hundreds of injured patients inside and new patients arriving every minute,” the organization said on Saturday.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown are traveling to Tel Aviv, where they will advise the Israeli government on how to turn the conflict into a more limited campaign and prevent a wider war, according to U.S. media reports.
German, French and British officials on Sunday called for efforts to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna urged an “immediate and durable” truce in the Gaza Strip.
In a joint article in the Sunday Times, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for a “sustainable cease-fire” in the Middle East, lamenting that “too many civilians have been killed” in the Israel-Hamas war.
