Key Points
- Gaza's health ministry says the number of people killed in Israeli attacks has surged in the last 24 hours.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his dismissal of a future Palestinian state.
- The UN called rejections of Palestinian statehood 'unacceptable', as protesters called for an election in Israel.
Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza on Saturday reported a surging number of people killed as Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, facing increasing domestic criticism, of calls for "Palestinian sovereignty" after the war.
While fighting raged across the besieged Gaza Strip, a strike in Syria blamed on Israel and missiles fired at US-led coalition forces in Iraq raised further fears of a wider conflagration.
Gaza's health ministry reported at least 165 people killed over the previous 24 hours – more than double Friday's figure.
An AFP correspondent reported gunfire, airstrikes and tank shelling, especially in southern Gaza's Khan Younis city.
In Rafah, further south near the border with Egypt, at least five people were killed in a strike that "targeted a civilian car", the health ministry said.
Israel is against Hamas, after the army in early January said the militants' command structure in northern Gaza had been dismantled, leaving only isolated fighters.
A woman sits amongst damaged homes caused by Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza. Source: Getty / Ahmad Hasaballah
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented October attacks which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage.
Israel's relentless bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 24,927 people in Gaza, according to the government's health ministry.
The war between Hamas and Israel is the latest escalation in a long-standing conflict.
Hamas is a Palestinian political and military group, which has governed the Gaza Strip since the most recent elections in 2006.
Hamas' stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state and stop the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, illegal under international law.
Hamas in its entirety is listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and seven other countries, including Australia.
In 2021 the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories dating back to 2014, including the recent attacks of both Israel and Hamas.
Benjamin Netanyahu doubles down on rejection of future Palestinian state
The United States, which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, has urged it to take more care to protect civilians, and the two sides have disagreed over Gaza's future governance.
Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden on Friday discussed the post-war future of Gaza.
Biden said it was still possible Netanyahu could agree to some form of Palestinian state, after the two spoke for the first time in nearly a month.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his rejection of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza. Source: AAP
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda, said the Palestinian right to statehood "must be recognised by all".
"The refusal to accept a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable," he said.
The UN's UNRWA agency for Palestinian refugees says about 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza by the war. About one million are crowded into the Rafah area.
In Gaza, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA reported just 15 bakeries operating across the narrow territory.
It said water availability for drinking and domestic use "is shrinking every day".
UN agencies have warned better aid access is needed urgently as famine and disease loom.
After Friday's Biden-Netanyahu call, the White House said Israel would allow flour shipments for Palestinians through Israel's port of Ashdod.
In Rafah, where over a million Palestinians are taking shelter, Israel dropped leaflets showing photos of 33 hostages, their names written in Arabic.
"Do you want to return home? Please make the call if you recognise one of them," the leaflets read.
"They are asking people's help because they are unable to get to their hostages because of the resistance," said Abu Ali, one north Gaza resident. "End the war, Netanyahu, and get your people back," he told Reuters.
Protesters in Israel have demanded more action from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on freeing remaining hostages, with some calling for an early election. Source: Getty / DPA
Protesters take to the streets in Israel
Thousands of people have demonstrated in Israel against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Participants at a rally in Tel Aviv demanded an immediate end to the war in Gaza in order to free the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas.
More than 100 of the hostages seized by Hamas were freed during a short-lived November truce. Israel says around 132 hostages remain in Gaza.
At least 27 captives are believed to have been killed, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
"Stop the fighting, pay the price!" Israeli media quoted one of the speakers, whose cousin is among the hostages, as saying.
Hamas has said it won't release the remaining hostages abducted from southern Israel on 7 October until Israel's military withdraws from the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu says that Hamas needs to be defeated militarily to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
In the northern port city of Haifa, several hundred supporters of the left-wing Chadash party demanded the prime minister's resignation on Saturday. Several hundred people also took to the streets in Jerusalem against the Netanyahu government.
In front of Netanyahu's home in the coastal town of Caesarea, 50km north of Tel Aviv, relatives of the hostages and supporters had started a permanent protest on Friday evening.
"We expect serious people ... to come out and give us real answers about how our loved ones are doing," the Haaretz newspaper quoted a hostage's relative as saying in its online edition.
