GAZA: Zionist forces pounded besieged Gaza on Wednesday in the war sparked by the Oct 7 attack and fought Hamas around several hospitals despite a UN Security Council demand for a ceasefire. Talks in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal, involving US and Egyptian mediators, have brought no result so far, with the Zionist entity and the Palestinian group blaming each other.

Tensions have risen between the Zionist entity and its top ally the United States over the soaring civilian death toll and dire food shortages in Gaza, and Zionist plans to push its ground offensive into the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians. In heavy overnight bombardment, Zionist strikes again hit Gaza City and Rafah, where a fireball lit up the sky over the city crowded with up to 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the war.

The health ministry in Gaza said 66 people were killed in overnight bombardment and combat. Zionist forces have battled militants in and around three Gaza hospitals, raising fears for patients, medical staff and displaced people inside them. Fighting has raged for nine days around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, and more recently near two hospitals in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, Al-Amal and Nasser.

Zionist tanks and armored vehicles have massed around Nasser Hospital, the Gaza health ministry said, adding that shots were fired but no raid had yet been launched. The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped inside and “their lives are in danger”.

Gaza has endured almost six months of war and a siege that has cut off most food, water, fuel and other supplies, and the UN has warned that its 2.4 million people are on the brink of a “man-made famine”. The flow of aid trucks from Egypt has slowed amid the war and due to lengthy Zionist cargo inspections.

Donor governments have airdropped food into Gaza where desperate crowds have rushed towards aid packages drifting down on parachutes. At least 18 people have been reported killed in stampedes or drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Hamas has urged an end to the airdrops and called for stepped-up road deliveries instead. The United States said it would keep airdropping humanitarian supplies while also pushing for more overland deliveries.

The Zionist entity’s campaign has killed at least 32,414 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry. The UN Security Council on Monday passed its first resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of the captives. The United States, which had blocked previous resolutions, abstained, drawing an angry rebuke from Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The right-wing premier canceled a Zionist delegation’s planned visit to Washington, although Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was already there. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin stressed, before meeting Gallant, that “the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low” in Gaza.Despite the tensions, Rear Admiral Hagari said security cooperation was closer than ever, “encompassing the entire US military and the US intelligence services”.

Zionist and Hamas envoys have engaged in weeks of indirect talks aimed at halting the fighting, but both sides said this week the talks were failing. Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari has said that, although the CIA and Mossad chiefs had left Doha, the talks were “ongoing” at a technical level.

Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad charged that the Zionist entity “is being intransigent and wants to keep the war going, despite international positions and in defiance to UN Security Council’s decision to cease fire during Ramadan”. “There hasn’t been any progress in ceasefire talks or negotiations for prisoners’ exchange,” he said. “The (Zionist) government’s procrastination is just a way to gain time and keep their aggression going.”

Amid the bloodiest ever Gaza conflict, the Zionist entity has also exchanged daily cross-border fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah based in southern Lebanon. The hostilities, in which the Zionist entity has also targeted Hamas militants, have raised fears of all-out conflict between the Zionist entity and Hezbollah, which fought a devastating war in 2006. Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets into the Zionist entity Wednesday killing a person, after the Zionist entity carried out a deadly predawn strike in south Lebanon. – AFP