Arab leaders at a summit in Baghdad demanded Saturday that the war ended immediately in Gaza, accusing Israel in stronger terms of attempting to expel the Palestinians out of the enclave completely after it increased its aerial campaign.
Arab leaders convened at a summit in Baghdad on Saturday and demanded that hostilities in Gaza stop immediately, blaming Israel for trying to push Palestinians out of the enclave after escalating its air campaign.
The Israeli military reported that it had launched the “first stages” of the new offensive, as part of “the widening of the fight in the Gaza Strip, to attain all the war’s goals, including the freeing of the kidnapped and the crumbling of Hamas”.
It reported that it had “launched mass strikes and redeployed forces to occupy sectors of areas within the Gaza Strip”. Israel’s defence minister reported that Operation Gideon Chariots had started and was being conducted with “great force” by Israel’s military. The news follows days of heavy bombardments throughout Gaza that killed hundreds of individuals, Gaza’s Health Ministry reports.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, whose nation is one of the key mediators in peace negotiations in Gaza, labelled Israel’s acts as “systematic crimes” with the “goal of obliterating and annihilating the Palestinians and bringing an end to their existence in the Gaza Strip”.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the host of the summit, stated that Israel was committing genocide. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who spoke at the summit, said “Nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
Israel unleashed dozens of airstrikes in Gaza on Friday that local health officials reported killed 108, primarily women and children, and that Israeli officials said was a prelude to an intensified campaign to pressure Hamas into the release of hostages. Israel also attacked two Yemen ports that it claimed were utilized by the Houthi militant group to ship weapons. Local health officials reported at least one death and nine injured.
