Israel Intensifies Bombardment of Gaza

Israel intensified its deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip Saturday as renewed fighting with Hamas entered a second day following the collapse of a weeklong cease-fire.

Israeli military officials said Saturday more than 50 Hamas targets in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza were pounded by aerial, naval and ground forces. The military said that it carried out strikes in the north and that more than 400 targets in Gaza have been hit since fighting resumed two days ago.

Saturday’s violence came a day after Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave killed 184 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In Syria, the Defense Ministry said Israel carried out airstrikes near Damascus early Saturday. Syrian state media reported that military defenses shot down most of the Israeli missiles. It said there were no reports of casualties.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that Israel has begun to take steps to reduce Palestinian casualties in its fight against Hamas.

“We saw Israel take steps immediately today to start to get information to people about where safe areas are, how they can get out of harm’s way,” he said in Dubai on the sidelines of the COP28 climate change conference.

However, Blinken said it was too early to say whether Israel had fully followed through on commitments it had made to ensure its military operation in southern Gaza does not lead to the same high death tolls seen in northern Gaza.

Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion in Gaza, aimed at eradicating Hamas, have killed more than 15,000 people, with thousands more injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

While in Dubai, Blinken met with his counterparts from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, along with representatives of the Palestinian Authority, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Blinken is on his third trip to the Middle East since Israel declared war against Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, after it launched terror attacks on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting an estimated 240, about 100 of whom have been released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during the just-ended seven-day truce.

The talks with Arab foreign ministers centered on the state of the Israel-Hamas war and how to deliver more humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, Blinken told reporters before boarding a flight back to Washington.

He said they also talked about “what happens the day after in Gaza and how we can get on the path to a just, lasting and secure peace for Israelis and Palestinians, in fact for everyone in the region.”

The U.N. said the fighting would exacerbate an acute humanitarian emergency.

“Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office in Geneva.

“Today those in power decided that the killing of children would recommence in Gaza,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said via video link from Rafah, Gaza, calling the conflict a “war on children.”

Elder stressed the dire lack of nutrition, water and sanitation in Gaza and pleaded for a lasting cease-fire. He said the alternative is unthinkable for people already living in a nightmare.

“Inaction, at its core, is an approval of the killing of children,” he said.