Canberra Times / Australian Associated Press | 30 January 2024
Why were the Americans there? Why is the murder of 25,000+ innocents of no value but the killing of 3 soldiers who are trained to be killers so suddenly the cause for further war – Biden has lost the plot. Mark
Israel has launched an assault on Gaza’s main northern city weeks after pulling back from there, residents say, while Washington is considering its response to the first deadly strike on its forces in the Middle East since the Gaza war began.
Three US servicemen were killed and at least 34 wounded in a drone attack by Iran-backed militants in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, US Central Command said on Sunday, an escalation in the violence that has erupted beyond Gaza.
US President Joe Biden said the attacks were carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq. Iran denied any role.
Biden has ordered retaliatory attacks on Iranian-backed groups but has stopped short of hitting Iran directly for fear of igniting a broader war amid violence that has already hampered global trade through attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
“Have no doubt – we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing,” he said on Sunday.
Inside Gaza, residents said air strikes on neighbourhoods across Gaza City killed and wounded many people. While tanks shelled the eastern areas of the city, naval boats fired shells and gun rounds at the beachfront areas in the west, they said.
Israel said late last year that it had largely completed operations in northern Gaza. The push back into Gaza City, where residents reported fierce gun battles near the main Al-Shifa hospital, indicated that the war was not going to plan.
Among those killed were two Palestinian journalists, Essam El-lulu and Hussein Attalah, along with several members of their families, health officials and the journalist union said.
Gazans said the renewed violence made a mockery of a ruling by the World Court calling on Israel to do more to help civilians. Health officials say 26,637 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict with thousands more bodies likely under the rubble of destroyed buildings across the coastal territory.
People in the north have been grinding animal feed to make flour after flour, rice and sugar ran out, part of an aid crisis now exacerbated by a withdrawal of support for the United Nations’ aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The United States and another major donor, Germany, are among countries to have suspended aid to the agency since Friday after Israel said 12 of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel which killed about 1200 people.
The Israeli report, seen by Reuters, said 190 UNRWA staff were also militants, naming 11.
UNRWA, which says more than 150 of its staff have been killed since October, said it would have to end operations within a month if funding was not restored.
Air strikes also hit the southern city of Khan Younis. Israel said that four among dozens of Palestinian gunmen it had killed in the past 24 hours had been preparing to ambush troops near Al-Amal hospital.
In the middle of Gaza, health officials said 13 Palestinians were killed in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood after Israeli forces stormed a shelter for displaced people.
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