Israel continued to pound Gaza with heavy airstrikes on Thursday as a top White House advisor was due to arrive in Jerusalem with a rift growing over US calls for its ally to exercise restraint.
The conflict, now in its third month, began after the October 7 attacks on Israel by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas. It has left besieged Gaza in ruins and killed more than 18,600 people, mostly women and children.
The Gaza health ministry said Israeli air strikes early Thursday had killed at least 19 people across the Gaza In the West Bank, which has also seen a surge in violence since October 7, the Palestinian Authority said two people were killed in Israeli strikes in the city of Jenin. US President Joe Biden, whose government has provided Israel with billions of dollars of military aid, on Wednesday gave his sharpest rebuke of the war yet, saying Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza was weakening international support. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his offensive, vowing “we are going until the end, until victory, nothing less than that”.—Agencies
