Hopes for a ceasefire between the Israeli Army and Hamas fade as a second week of hostilities begins.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said
the end of the fighting is not near
.
"We will do whatever it takes to restore order and calm," he said Sunday night in an interview with CBS.
Despite mounting international criticism of the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, Netanyahu promised that the country would continue its
"campaign against terrorist organizations
.
"
[The Israeli Army launches its deadliest attack in the last week, killing dozens of people in Gaza]
Netanyahu also said in a televised speech on Sunday that Israel's attacks will continue
"in full force" and "will take time,"
and that his government "wants to impose a heavy price" on the militant group Hamas.
So far, at least
192 Palestinians have died
, including
58 children
and 34 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and 1,235 people have been injured.
Nine Israelis have died, including a 5-year-old boy and a soldier.
A fireball and plume of smoke rise over buildings in Gaza City as Israeli forces bombard the Palestinian enclave early on May 17, 2021.MAHMUD HAMS / AFP via Getty Images
US President Joe Biden said his Administration is working with Palestinians and Israelis to achieve a sustained calm.
"We believe that Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve to live in safety and enjoy the same measure of freedom, prosperity and democracy," he said in a pre-recorded video on Sunday.
However,
Biden has shown no sign of pressuring Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire.
[Latinos in Israel fear for their lives in the face of escalating conflict with Palestine]
The
UN Security Council
also failed this Sunday to
agree on a joint response to end the conflict.
While Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyadh Al-Malki urged the Security Council to take action to end the Israeli attacks, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, urged the Council to condemn the "indiscriminate attacks. and unprovoked "from Hamas.
Palestinians rescue a survivor from the rubble of a residential building destroyed after the deadly Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, Sunday, May 16, 2021.AP / Khalil Hamra
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, said the priority is to stop the violence as soon as possible and warned that the fighting could drag "Israelis and Palestinians into a
spiral of violence with devastating consequences
for the two communities and for the entire community. region".
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said at the emergency meeting that her country was "working tirelessly through diplomatic channels" to stop the fighting.
Another night of attacks
The Israeli army launched new airstrikes at various points in Gaza City early Monday.
For 10 minutes, the explosions shook the city from north to south, in
a more intense attack, in a wider area and that lasted longer
than the attacks on Sunday in which 42 Palestinians died, including 16 women and 10 children. the deadliest in the last week
The Israeli Army has attacked the homes throughout Gaza of nine commanders of the organization deemed terrorist, according to the Army.
These are the days of this Venezuelan trapped in the middle of the war in Israel
May 16, 202101: 59
So far
there are no reports of deaths or injuries.
The main coastal highway west of the city, security complexes and open spaces were hit in the latest attacks, according to local media.
And according to the power distribution company, a line that supplies electricity to large parts of the southern part of the city was damaged.
For its part, Hamas also fired rockets from civilian areas in Gaza into civilian areas in Israel.
Hostilities have repeatedly escalated over the past week, marking the worst fighting in the territory home to 2 million Palestinians since the devastating 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.
"I have not seen this level of destruction in my 14 years of work,"
said Samir al-Khatib, an emergency rescue official in Gaza.
"Not even in the 2014 war," he added.
Since the conflict began, Israel has razed several of the tallest residential and office buildings in Gaza City, claiming they house Hamas military infrastructure.
Ten members of the same family die after Israeli Army bombing of Gaza
May 15, 202101: 28
On Saturday it attacked a 12-story building, which houses the offices of The Associated Press news agency, the Al Jazeera television network and other media outlets, as well as several apartment floors.
Sally Buzbee, the AP's executive editor, called for an independent investigation into the airstrike.
Meanwhile, the Reporters Without Borders organization on Sunday asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the Israeli bombing of the building that housed international media as a possible war crime.
The Paris-based organization said in a letter to the court's chief prosecutor that the offices of
23 international and local media organizations
have been destroyed in the past six days
.
The attacks serve "to reduce, if not neutralize, the ability of the media to inform the public," the organization added.
About
34,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes,
said UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland at the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
With information from AP and CBS.
