GAZA: Health officials in Gaza Strip on Saturday reported a surging death toll in fighting with the Zionist entity, whose leader Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls for “Palestinian sovereignty” after the war. As fighting raged across the besieged territory, a strike in Syria blamed on the Zionist entity and missiles fired at US-led coalition forces in Iraq raised further fears of a wider conflagration.

Gaza’s health ministry reported at least 165 people killed over the previous 24 hours — more than double Friday’s figure. An AFP correspondent reported gunfire, air strikes and tank shelling, especially in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis city. The Zionist entity is pressing its push southwards against Hamas, after the army in early January claimed the fighters’ command structure in northern Gaza had been dismantled, leaving only isolated fighters.

But Hamas reported fierce combat in north Gaza as the Zionist military said troops backed by air and naval support were striking militant infrastructure throughout the Palestinian territory, including the north. The Zionist entity’s relentless bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 24,927 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.

The United States, which provides the Zionist entity with billions of dollars in military aid, has urged it to take more care to protect civilians, and the two sides have disagreed over Gaza’s future governance. Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden Friday discussed the post-war future of Gaza amid a dire humanitarian situation.

Biden said it was still possible Netanyahu could agree to some form of Palestinian state, after the two leaders spoke for the first time in nearly a month. “There are a number of types of two-state solutions. There’s a number of countries that are members of the UN that... don’t have their own militaries,” Biden told reporters after an event at the White House. Asked what Netanyahu was open to, Biden replied: “I’ll let you know.”

But Netanyahu’s office in a statement Saturday said he “reiterated his policy that after Hamas is destroyed (the Zionist entity) must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to (the Zionist entity), a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty”.

A senior Hamas official on Saturday dismissed Biden’s comments. “The illusion that Biden is preaching about a state of Palestine and its characteristics does not fool our people,” Izzat Al-Rishq, member of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a statement. “Biden is a full partner in the genocidal war and our people do not expect any good from him.”

The right of the Palestinian people to build their own state “must be recognized by all”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda on Saturday. “The refusal to accept a two-state solution for (Zionists) and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable,” the UN leader insisted in Kampala. Such a stance “would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security; exacerbate polarization; and embolden extremists everywhere,” Guterres warned. “The right of the Palestinian people to build their own state must be recognized by all.”

The UN’s UNRWA agency for Palestinian refugees says about 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza by the war. About one million are crowded into the Rafah area in the far south, near Egypt. UN agencies have warned better aid access — including through the Zionist entity’s Ashdod port— is needed urgently as famine and disease loom. After Friday’s Biden-Netanyahu call, the White House said the Zionist entity would allow flour shipments for Palestinians through Ashdod.

In Gaza, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA reported only 15 bakeries were operating across the narrow territory. Water availability for drinking and domestic use “is shrinking every day”, OCHA added. It also said that without immediate funding and an expanded response, 375,000 malnourished children and vulnerable mothers risk severe undernourishment.

Thousands of Gazan men have been detained by Zionist forces, often facing conditions that could amount to torture, said the UN’s human rights representative in the Palestinian territories, Ajith Sunghay. The Zionist entity’s military said individuals suspected of involvement in “terrorist activities” were being treated in accordance with international law.

Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where Zionist troops and settlers have killed more than 360 people since Oct 7, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry. Deadly exchanges have occurred regularly between Zionist forces and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, whose deputy leader Naim Qassem has urged the Zionist entity not “to expand its aggression”.

In western Iraq, a military base used by US-led coalition forces came under a barrage of missiles, a US defense source and an Iraqi police official told AFP. Since mid-October, there have been dozens of attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, the majority of them claimed by Tehran-aligned groups that oppose US support for the Zionist entity.