Gaza: Israel bombarded the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended a days-long regional tour aimed at preventing the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.
His final stop in Egypt coincided with a hearing at the UN's top court over an urgent appeal for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza's southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt and overrun with displaced people fleeing fighting further north, Palestinians mourned their dead and expressed hope the ICJ could render justice on their behalf.
"Israel considers itself above the law. We ask... the international judges to judge Israel" and its government, Hisham al Kullah said, holding a dead baby whose body was one of several to arrive at Rafah's Al Najjar hospital.
Another mourner, Mohammad al Arjan, expressed hope that "the court stops the war".
Hamas's press office said early on Thursday that 62 people had been killed in strikes overnight, including around Gaza's main southern city of Khan Younis.
The wounded included several children who arrived at the city's Al Nasser hospital. A boy with a pained expression and blood down one side of his face walked in. A man carried the limp body of a girl from an ambulance.
The war has triggered an acute humanitarian crisis, with an Israeli siege sparking shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine.
The World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said there are "nearly insurmountable challenges" to aid delivery in Gaza.
"Intense bombardment, restrictions on movement, fuel shortages and interrupted communications make it impossible for WHO and our partners to reach those in need," he told reporters.
In Rafah, former Gaza health ministry staffer Zaki Shaheen converted his shop into a makeshift clinic.
"We got help from the health ministry," aiming to ease pressure on overburdened hospitals, Shaheen said.
"We receive no less than 30 or 40 cases per day, morning to night. I'll be sleeping, then someone comes in with an injury or a burn, so we treat them," he said.
The United Nations estimates 1.9 million Gazans have been uprooted by the war.
Before his final stop in Egypt, Blinken sketched out a possible post-war future for Gaza after meeting Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa.
Blinken told Abbas that Washington supported "tangible steps" towards the creation of a Palestinian state -- a long-term goal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government has opposed.
The health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday at least 23,469 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Hamas since it erupted on October 7.
The ministry said another 59,604 people were also wounded in the more than three months of fighting.
The war will reach the 100-day mark on Sunday, with no end in sight. — AFP/Reuters
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