The United States called for Israel to protect civilians in hospitals as Israeli forces pressed ahead in its fight against Hamas militants in Gaza, carrying out airstrikes Monday in the territory’s northern, central and southern regions.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday that while Israel has a right to defend itself, "We expect them to do so in accordance with international law and to protect innocent people in hospitals, medical staff and patients as well, as much as possible."
Reuters news agency reported that Israeli troops Monday stormed a hospital in Al-Mawasi district, west of the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis. Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told the news agency that Israeli forces arrested medical staff at the hospital.
Israel has blamed Hamas for putting civilians in danger, saying the militant group intentionally operates in and around hospitals and has created a network of tunnels underneath.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, which governs Gaza, after the militant group sent fighters rampaging into Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and others, also took about 240 people hostage.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says at least 25,295 Palestinians have been killed in the war, many of them women and children. The ministry does not specify the number of civilians and Hamas fighters among the dead.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday that the way Israel is carrying out its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is “seeding hate for generations.”
Borrell spoke ahead of separate talks EU ministers held Monday with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz and the Palestinian Authority’s top diplomat, Riyad al-Maliki.
“We have in mind what Hamas is, what Hamas has done, and certainly we reject and we condemn,” Borrell told reporters. “But the peace and stability cannot be built only by military means, and not in this particular way of using military means.”
“The humanitarian situation could not be worse,” Borrell said. “There [are] no words to explain how the situation is, with hundreds of thousands without anything, without shelter, without food, without medicine and under the bombs.”
In fighting Monday, airstrikes were reported across the Gaza Strip, with intense battles in Khan Younis, the second-largest city in Gaza.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its ambulances were unable to reach the wounded in Khan Younis due to Israeli troops besieging the group’s ambulance center.
Also Monday, groups of relatives of the Israeli hostages disrupted an Israeli parliamentary committee meeting, demanding lawmakers do more to free those still being held. The demonstration was the latest in a string of similar actions in recent days, including a protest Sunday near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence.
Netanyahu on Sunday rejected a proposal by Hamas to end the war.
“In exchange for the release of our hostages,” the Israeli leader said in a statement, “Hamas demands the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all the murderers and rapists. And leaving Hamas intact."
"I reject outright the terms of surrender of the monsters of Hamas," Netanyahu said.
Hamas on Sunday defended its terror attack on Israel but admitted to "faults" and called for an end to "Israeli aggression" in Gaza.
In its first public report on the attack that began the war, the militant group said it was a “necessary step" against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and a way to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners.
In late November, in a deal brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, more than 100 of the estimated 240 hostages who were taken captive to Gaza were freed in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Since that deal ended, Netanyahu has faced mounting pressure from within Israel and from some world leaders to secure the release of the 136 hostages who remain in captivity, perhaps two dozen of whom have died or been killed.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
