GAZA: Israeli forces pushed on with intense strikes in Gaza on Monday as the war neared one month and health ministry's death toll approached 10,000 inside the besieged territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed no let up despite mounting international calls for a ceasefire.
Ground forces with tanks have flooded the northern half of the Gaza Strip and tightened an encirclement of Gaza City, even as hundreds of thousands of civilians remained in the north.
The health ministry in Gaza Strip said on Monday the death toll from Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian territory had surpassed 10,000, nearly one month after the start of the war.
The toll of 10,022 deaths was announced in a press conference in Gaza by health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidreh.
"These are massacres! They destroyed three houses over the heads of their inhabitants — women and children," one resident, Mahmoud Mechmech, said in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
"We have already taken 40 bodies out of the rubble," he said as crowds prayed around corpses wrapped in white shrouds outside a nearby hospital.
Israeli troops and Palestinians have engaged in fierce house-to-house combat in densely populated Gaza, where the war has sent 1.5 million people fleeing to other parts of the territory.
Netanyahu has remained firm on his position, vowing on Sunday that "there won't be a ceasefire until the hostages are returned".
Shortly before the latest barrage of strikes, internet and telephone lines were cut, the army said.
A US official said on Saturday at least 350,000 civilians remained in the worst-hit areas.
Deepening the desperation in the crowded territory, the sole border crossing into Gaza from Egypt has remained closed for days.
The evacuations of foreign passport holders were suspended after Israel had refused to allow some wounded Palestinians to be evacuated.
The Rafah crossing between reopened on Monday to allow the evacuation of foreigners and dual nationals from the Palestinian territory being shelled by Israeli forces, the Palestinian government said.
The terminal was opened for three days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week to allow dozens of wounded Palestinians and hundreds of foreign passport-holders to cross before closing on Saturday and Sunday amid a dispute over the passage of ambulances.
Meanwhile, the war has exacerbated tensions in the West Bank, where more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian health ministry. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
