UN Security Council Meets As Israel Strikes Kill 42 In Gaza
Israeli strikes killed 42 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the worst daily toll yet in almost a week of deadly clashes, as the UN Security Council met amid global alarm at the escalating conflict.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pleaded for an immediate end to the “utterly appalling” violence and warned of an “uncontainable security and humanitarian crisis”.
But the council meeting, already delayed by Israel’s ally the United States, resulted in little action.
The heaviest exchange of fire in years, sparked by unrest in Jerusalem, has killed 197 in Gaza since Monday, along with 10 in Israel, according to authorities on either side.
Israel said Sunday morning its “continuing wave of strikes” had in the past 24 hours struck over 90 targets across the crowded coastal enclave, where an Israeli strike that destroyed a building housing journalists’ offices sparked international outrage.
The death toll kept rising in Gaza on Sunday as rescuers extracted bodies from vast piles of smoking rubble and the bereaved wailed in grief.
“We were sleeping and then all of a sudden there were rockets raining down on us,” said Lamia al-Koulak, 43, who lost siblings and their children in dawn bombardment.
Source: Punch
