2,000 children killed in Gaza, aid group says, as tempers flare at UN amid ceasefire calls

Tempers flared at the United Nations on Tuesday amid ceasefire calls, as aid groups and doctors in Gaza warn that power shortages threaten the lives of vulnerable infants and patients.

Aid agencies have been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, with one saying at least 2,000 children in Gaza have been killed in the past few weeks, as Israel intensified its bombing campaign in the besieged strip.

Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said Monday the country is preparing for a “multilateral operation” on the militant group Hamas that controls Gaza from the “air, ground, and sea.”

More than 700 people were killed in Gaza in the previous 24 hour period, the highest daily number published since Israeli strikes against what it called Hamas targets in Gaza began two and a half weeks ago, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah on Tuesday. Those killed included 305 children, 173 women and 78 elderly individuals, the ministry said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told soldiers on Tuesday that yesterday’s strikes killed “dozens of terrorists,” according to a press release from his office. “We struck the enemy the harshest blow they have taken in a single day. We killed dozens of terrorists, possibly even more,” he said.

Israel’s leadership has vowed to wipe out Hamas in response to its October 7 deadly terror attacks and kidnap rampage in which 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

Inside Gaza, cut off from the world by a near total blockade, Israeli airstrikes have decimated entire neighborhoods, leveling homes, schools and mosques. CNN drone footage from Monday showed the level of destruction across parts of the strip, with whole streets flattened in the al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City and a row of destroyed buildings known as al-Zahra towers in central Gaza.

Latest figures from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said the death toll resulting from Israeli strikes on the strip has reached at least 5,087, including 2,055 children.

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