Gaza, Palestinian Territories — The death toll from Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip surged to at least 2,670 since Hamas’s bloody attack on southern Israel last week, the Gaza health ministry said Sunday.
Another 9,600 people have also been injured as Israel continued its blistering air campaign on targets in the Palestinian coastal enclave, the Hamas-controlled ministry added.
Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip have led to an “unprecedented human catastrophe” in the Palestinian territory, the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees said.
“Not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a liter of fuel has been allowed in the Gaza Strip for the last eight days,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, told journalists.
“Raise the alarm that as of today, my UNRWA colleagues in Gaza are no longer able to provide humanitarian assistance as I speak,” Lazzarini said.
“In fact, Gaza is being strangled and it seems the war right now has lost its humanity,” he continued.
“If we look at the issue of water, we all know water is life and Gaza is running out of water and Gaza is running out of life.”
Israel’s Energy Minister Israel Katz earlier said water supply were resuming to southern Gaza after talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden.
“This will push the civilian population to the southern (part of the) Strip,” Katz said in a statement, a week after Israel had stopped supplying water to the entire territory as part of a “complete siege” on the Palestinian enclave.
As Israel seeks to avenge the worst attack in its history, the Arab League and African Union warned the invasion could lead to “a genocide of unprecedented proportions”.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan earlier said that Israel told him it had turned the water supply back on in southern Gaza.
The municipality of Beni Suheila in southern Gaza confirmed that the water supply had resumed to the village.
An estimated one million people have been displaced in the first seven days of the conflict in Gaza, UNRWA said earlier on Sunday.
“The number is likely to be higher as people continue to leave their homes,” UNRWA director of communications Juliette Touma told AFP.
UNSC possible resolution
UN Security Council members held difficult talks Sunday on a possible resolution over the war between Israel and Hamas, with two drafts on the negotiating table, diplomats said.
On Friday, Russia circulated a draft that calls for “an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire” in the war triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack from Gaza on southern Israel.
That draft calls for “unimpeded” humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which had already been under a years-long Israeli blockade and is now under a full-blown siege, with basics like electricity and food supplies cut off.
The Russian draft, seen by AFP, “strongly condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism,” without mentioning Hamas.
But the United States is insisting that the council condemn the Hamas attacks as an act of terrorism. And a competing draft from Brazil does explicitly do that, diplomats said.
Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said some council members had expressed a “positive” view of Moscow’s draft in a closed-door meeting Friday.
After seeking suggestions for changes to the text, Russia asked Brazil, the council’s current chair, to put it up for a vote on Monday.
But no vote has been scheduled yet, diplomats said.
To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine votes on the 15-member body and cannot be vetoed by any of the five permanent members — the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia.
Diplomats said the talks were tough going, as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict regularly divides the council.
In theory, the text sponsored by Brazil, or one from any other council member, could be put up for a vote if the Russian document is not approved.
Egypt plans summit on Palestinian cause
Egypt said Sunday it plans to host a summit on “the future of the Palestinian cause” as the Israel-Hamas war raged in Gaza and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Cairo.
Egypt controls the Rafah border crossing, the only passage in and out of the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel, which has been closed since Tuesday after three Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian side.
Palestinians and foreigners have been unable to flee, and aid trucks bound for Gaza have been waiting in El Arish, 50 kilometres (30 miles) away.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi headed a national security council meeting Sunday on the “military escalation in Gaza”, said a statement from his spokesman.
His administration has pushed for diplomatic efforts with allies and humanitarian groups to “deescalate” the conflict and “deliver the required aid”, he said.
Cairo also said it would host a regional and international summit on the future of the Palestinian cause, but without providing a date.
The council on Sunday echoed Sisi’s earlier statements “rejecting and denouncing policies of displacement or attempts to eradicate the Palestinian cause at the expense of neighboring countries”.
Cairo, historically a key intermediary between Israel and Hamas, faces mounting pressure to allow fleeing Palestinians to enter Egypt.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas warned Blinken on Friday that driving out Gaza’s people would amount to a “second Nakba” — the displacement and expulsion of more than 760,000 Palestinians when the Israeli state was created in 1948.
Israeli evacuation warnings for Palestinians have stirred fears that Israel is pushing to resettle Gazans into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, which Israel has occupied in the past.
In a televised interview with Al Jazeera, Israel’s former deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon said Cairo “will have to play ball” and allow “temporary” settlement in the “almost endless space” in Sinai, a vast desert region.
Sinai has been the site of a multi-year fight against Islamist insurgents that has devastated North Sinai communities.
Ayalon said Israel and the international community could prepare infrastructure, including “tent cities”, to receive the refugees, an idea Cairo strongly rejects.
“Egypt’s national security is a red line and there will be no complacency in protecting it,” Cairo’s national security council said Sunday.