GAZA: Israel kept up heavy bombing of Gaza on Monday as it faced accusations from a human rights group that it is deliberately starving Palestinians in its campaign.
Fighting raged on in the third month of the bloodiest ever Gaza war, with the Palestinian health ministry reporting another 110 people killed in strikes on Jabalia, outside Gaza City, since Sunday.
The UN Security Council in New York was set to vote later in the day on another call for a ceasefire in the besieged territory, after previous bids were vetoed by Israel's key ally the United States.
And Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin was expected back in Israel on Monday as part of a Middle East tour aimed at stopping the conflict from spreading further.
Gaza's health ministry says Israel's military response has killed more than 19,453 people, mostly women and children, while reducing vast areas to rubble.
International alarm has mounted over the dire plight of 2.4 million Gazans now enduring bombardment, food and water shortages, mass displacement and plummeting winter temperatures.
The New York-based campaign group Human Rights Watch charged that Israel "is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime".
"Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while wilfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival," it wrote in a report.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, earlier said that he "would not be surprised if people start dying of hunger, or a combination of hunger, disease, weak immunity".
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday again vowed Israel will "fight until the end".
The army has reported 127 deaths in Gaza since it launched ground operations in late October.
Israel has faced mounting global pressure to either slow, suspend or stop hostilities -- including from families of the remaining 129 hostages believed held in Gaza.
The families' anger and fear intensified after Israeli forces mistakenly shot dead three hostages who had escaped their captors inside Gaza.
The trio had waved white flags and had used food leftovers to write a Hebrew-language message on a white sheet before they were shot, reports said.
Army chief of staff Herzi Halevi, in a message to troops, stressed that if enemy fighters "lay down their arms and raise their hands, we capture them, we don't shoot them".
"We extract a lot of intelligence from the captives we have, we already have over 1,000." — Reuters
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