VIENNA/GAZA: Kuwaiti permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva Ambassador Nasser Al-Hain called on the international community to take responsibility and stop the Zionist occupation’s aggression on Gaza and grant Palestinians their legitimate rights. This came in a speech by Hain at the opening of an event organized by Kuwait along with Belgium and the International Labor Organization (ILO), attended by several donor countries to support the occupied Palestinian territories.

Hain pointed out that everyone agrees that the situation in Gaza is critical, given the terrorist acts committed against the Palestinians in Gaza, the latest being the crime against the Palestinians at Nuseirat camp. He also said that what is happening in Rafah is strong evidence of the violations of all international conventions by the Zionist occupation, noting the heart-wrenching sight of victims forcefully subjected to this war.

In his speech at the international event, Hain urged the international community to unite and stand against the Zionist occupation’s oppression in occupied Palestine against Palestinian workers, and to provide urgent humanitarian aid. Hain stressed in his speech that Kuwait, based on its firm belief in the justice of the Palestinian cause, has not and will not hesitate to extend a helping hand and support them in achieving the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, within the 1967 borders.

Kuwait will continue to ratchet up aid for the Palestinians, which includes an annual sum worth $500,000 it provides the ILO, Hain said. As per the instructions of HH the Amir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Kuwait-based charities were quick to provide urgent aid for the Palestinians. Kuwait has already provided some $112 million worth of urgent aid for the Palestinians since the Zionist war in Gaza began, he said, underlining that such assistance will continue unimpeded given the scope of their misery.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed Hamas on Monday for holding up a ceasefire in Gaza, as the top US diplomat conducted a Middle East peace mission to deliver President Joe Biden’s latest proposed plan to end the Gaza war. Speaking after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in Cairo, Blinken said Hamas was the only side that had yet to agree to Biden’s proposal, which Washington says already had the Zionist entity’s backing before Biden announced it on May 31.

Washington says its proposal envisions a ceasefire in stages, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war. But the Zionist entity still says it will agree only to temporary pauses until Hamas is defeated, while Hamas says it will not accept a truce without

guarantees that the war will end. “My message to governments throughout the region, to people throughout the region, is — if you want a ceasefire, press Hamas to say ‘yes’,” Blinken told reporters before departing Egypt to visit the Zionist entity where he was due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“If you want to alleviate the terrible suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, press Hamas to say ‘yes’. If you want to get all the hostages home, press Hamas to say ‘yes’. If you want to put (Zionists) and Palestinians alike on the path to more durable peace and security, press Hamas to say ‘yes’,” he said.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters Blinken’s comments were “an example of bias toward (the Zionist entity) and it offers American cover to the holocaust conducted by the occupation in Gaza”. Hamas and its allies Islamic Jihad said in a joint statement: “Any agreement must ensure a permanent end to the aggression and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction, lifting the blockade and a serious swap deal.”

Witnesses in north and central Gaza reported helicopter gunfire and naval shelling hitting Gaza City, and air strikes on Deir al-Balah during the latest fighting. Street battles raged in the southern areas of Rafah and Khan Yunis, where bodies were seen lying in the streets and Palestinian civilians were fleeing, an AFP correspondent said.

Outside the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, a grief-stricken man lay down among white-shrouded bodies to hug one of them after they were loaded onto a truck. Other men had to pull him from the body bag. The latest clashes follow major combat and heavy airstrikes during Saturday’s hostage rescue mission in the Nuseirat camp.

While Zionists celebrated the return of the four captives in good physical health, Palestinians condemned a death toll that left 274 people killed and almost 700 injured, many of them women and children. In the aftermath of the battle, Palestinians searched for survivors and bodies in the rubble of collapsed buildings. Charred cars and debris littered a devastated neighborhood coated in concrete dust.

“We are exhausted and helpless, enough is enough,” said Jehad, who fled under fire from Saturday’s assault in Nuseirat with his family and was now in Deir al-Balah, speaking by text message. The family had already been displaced from Gaza City to Nuseirat, to Khan Younis, to Rafah and back to Nuseirat before their latest flight.

In video obtained by Reuters from Nuseirat, resident Anas Alyan, standing outside the ruins of his home, described how Zionist commandos wearing shorts had appeared in the streets, firing wildly while F-16s and quadcopters fired from the air. “Anyone moving in the street was killed - anyone moving, or walking, was killed immediately,” he said. “There are still children under this building. We don’t know how to pull them out,” he said, pointing to one ruin. “Today we found children martyred in that building,” he said, pointing to another.

The Zionist military offensive has killed at least 37,124 people in Gaza, mostly women and children. The toll includes at least 40 deaths over the past 24 hours, the ministry said on Monday. The war has brought widespread devastation to Gaza and displaced most of its 2.4 million inhabitants, many of whom United Nations agencies warn are on the brink of starvation.

In Rafah, the city on the southern edge of Gaza where the Zionist entity launched an offensive last month, residents said on Monday tanks had been thrusting deeper towards the north in the early hours of the morning. They were on the edge of Shaboura, one of the most densely populated neighborhoods at the heart of the city. Around half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people had been sheltering in Rafah before last month’s assault, and a million have since fled again. – Agencies