San Francisco Frontiers - Israel pounds Gaza as US vetoes UN truce resolution

Global powers trying to navigate a way out of the spiralling crisis have come up short, with a so-far fruitless push by mediators to reach a truce and two rival ceasefire proposals put forward at the United Nations.

On Tuesday Washington vetoed the first proposal, drafted by Algeria, which demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and "unconditional" release of all hostages kidnapped in the October 7 attacks.

Washington's ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called the vote "wishful and irresponsible".

Hamas said the US veto equalled "a green light for the occupation to commit more massacres".

The veto provoked a chorus of criticism from countries including China and Russia -- which have rejected the resolute US backing for Israel -- but also from US allies including France, Malta and Slovenia.

With US President Joe Biden facing increasing pressure to dial down support for Israel, Washington also put forward an alternative draft resolution on Gaza, giving support for "a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable".

As diplomatic powers wrangled, Israel continued to hit Gaza with air strikes and ground combat that killed a total of 103 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, its health ministry said.

Strikes continued into Tuesday evening in Gaza's southernmost city Rafah and to the east of Gaza City, the ministry said.

- 'Where is the humanity'? -

The UN has repeatedly sounded alarm over Gaza's dire humanitarian situation and warned food shortages could lead to an "explosion" of preventable child deaths.

Despite having only just re-started much-needed deliveries into the hard-hit north, the UN's food programme said Tuesday it had been forced to stop after having "faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order".

The World Food Programme resumed deliveries Sunday but its convoy was met with gunfire, violence, looting, people trying to climb onto the vans, and a truck driver was beaten, it said Tuesday.

The WFP acknowledged that halting deliveries meant the situation "will deteriorate further and more people risk dying of hunger".

The scarcity of food and safe water has triggered a steep rise in malnutrition, the UN children's fund warned Monday, with one in six children in northern Gaza now acutely malnourished.

"How many of us have to die... to stop these crimes?" said Ahmad Moghrabi, a Palestinian doctor in southern Gaza's main city, Khan Yunis.

"Where is the humanity?"

- Calls for pause -

After months of struggling for a united response, all EU members except Hungary called Monday for an "immediate humanitarian pause".

They also urged Israel not to invade Rafah, where some 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering, many in makeshift tents.

The city -- the last untouched by Israeli ground troops -- is also the main entry point for desperately needed relief supplies via neighbouring Egypt.

Israel says the offensive is essential to destroy Hamas.

The war started when Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.

Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages -- 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 29,195 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the territory's health ministry.

For weeks, Israel has concentrated its military operations in Khan Yunis, the hometown of Hamas's leader in the territory Yahya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the October 7 attack.

The army said Tuesday troops were continuing "intensive operations" in the city and "killed dozens of terrorists over the past day".

- 'Dying from hunger or bombing' -

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization said it had transferred 32 patients out of the city's Nasser hospital, which Israeli troops raided last week after days of fighting around the medical facility.

Seven patients have died in the besieged hospital since Friday due to a lack of oxygen amid power cuts, according to the Gaza health ministry.

The Israeli army denied any patients died since the army began its operation.

The WHO said it feared for patients and staff still inside and warned the damage to the hospital -- the chief facility in southern Gaza -- was a "massive blow".

Witnesses said Gaza City's southern Zeitun neighbourhood had also come under heavy bombardment.

"We don't know where to go -- every place is being bombed," said resident Abdullah Al-Qadi, 67.

Farther south in Al-Zawayda, Ayman Abu Shammali said his wife and daughter had been killed in an Israeli missile strike.

"People in the north are dying from hunger, while here we are dying from bombing," he said.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials, the militant group said -- days after mediators said prospects for truce had dimmed despite meetings with both Israeli and Hamas negotiators last week.

US envoy Brett McGurk will seek to advance a hostage deal and press for assurances from Israel on a Rafah offensive in a trip to Egypt and Israel this week, the White House said Tuesday.

The lack of progress in securing the release of the remaining hostages has fuelled protests in Israel against the government's handling of the war, particularly from the desperate families of captives still held in Gaza.

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M.Powell--SFF