The Israeli air force has been bombing civilians in Gaza for the 18th day in a row, killing at least 704 people and injuring more than 15,000, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip. Among the dead are many children and women, and the ministry has documented 47 massacres in the past hours. The death toll of Israeli aggression over two weeks reached about 5,800, most of them children and women, in addition to more than 15,000 injured. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening as the health system collapses and the number of displaced people reaches 1.4 million. The Israeli army has destroyed many residential buildings and infrastructure in the besieged enclave. Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance factions, led by Hamas, have launched thousands of rockets at Israeli targets, killing more than 1,400 Israelis, including 308 soldiers, and capturing more than 200 others. The resistance has named its operation "Al-Aqsa Flood" in response to the Israeli aggression on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem. On the diplomatic front, Russia and China have called for an immediate ceasefire, while France has proposed forming a regional and international coalition to confront what it called groups that threaten everyone. Also on Tuesday, the UN Security Council held an urgent meeting to discuss developments in the situation in the Middle East. During his speech at the meeting, Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, condemned "the appalling attacks by Hamas" on Israel, but he also said: "It is important to also recognize that these attacks did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation." "They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing," Guterres said. The UN Secretary-General also noted that "the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify" what he called "the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people." Guterres expressed deep concern about "the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza". But he also stressed that "the only realistic foundation for a true peace and stability: is the two-state solution." In the meantime, an Israeli military spokesperson said on Tuesday that the occupation army is "ready and awaiting political instructions," referring to the start of a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, adding: "We have many weeks of fighting ahead of us." The spokesperson noted, according to Reuters, that "Egypt plays a major role in the negotiations to release prisoners from Gaza." Regarding what was stated in a report by The New York Times that the Biden administration is concerned about "the lack of a military goal that can be achieved from the ground war," the spokesperson responded by saying: "We learn from America, but our war is on our borders and not thousands of miles away, and therefore we must make the decision on our own to remove the threat from Hamas." Meanwhile, Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued to fire missiles targeting Israeli targets in response to what they described as Israeli violations of humanitarian law and bombing innocent civilians in Gaza.
