UN Warns Of Regional Conflict as Israeli-Palestinian War Rages On

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – The United Nations suggested Sunday that the Israeli-Palestinian was escalating into a broader Middle East conflict after Palestinian medics said Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City flattened three buildings killing at least 42 people.

“The fighting risks dragging Israelis and Palestinians into a spiral of violence with devastating consequences for both communities and for the entire region,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “It has the potential to unleash an uncontainable security and humanitarian crisis and to further foster extremism, not only in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel but in the region as a whole, ” he added.

Guterres spoke at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council where three nations tried to get the U.N.’s most powerful body to take action on the escalating violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers.
China, Norway, and Tunisia tried unsuccessfully at closed meetings Monday and Wednesday to get an agreement on a council statement. Diplomats say the U.S. argued such a statement could interfere with diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the situation.

There also was no agreement at Sunday’s first open meeting on the violence. However, the ambassadors of China, Norway, and Tunisia issued a joint statement on the Gaza conflict demanding an immediate end of all acts of violence, provocation, and destruction.

Despite mounting international pressure to end the fighting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled the fourth war with the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers would rage on. In a televised address, Netanyahu said the attacks targeting militants in the Palestinian territory continued at “full-force” and would “take time.“ Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” on the Hamas militant group, he said, flanked by his defense minister and political rival, Benny Gantz, in a show of unity.

He spoke as Hamas continued attacking Israel. It launched rockets from civilian areas in the Gaza Strip toward civilian areas in Israel, reporters witnessed. One slammed into a synagogue in the southern city of Ashkelon hours before evening services for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Israeli emergency services said. No injuries were reported in those attacks, but earlier rocket blasts caused death and injuries.

CHILDREN KILLED

Ten people, including two children, have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel since last Monday, Israel said. In Gaza, officials claimed 42 people, including 16 women and ten children, died in the latest Israeli airstrikes.

The overall death toll in the Palestinian territory rose to nearly 200 late Sunday, including 58 children and 34 women, with 1,235 injured, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. Israel says dozens of militants are among the dead.

There was no sign that Israel and Hamas were willing to offer even a temporary truce that would allow medics in the Gaza Strip to recover people – alive and dead – from under collapsed buildings. In Israel, people were hiding in several areas for a new round of incoming rockets fired by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip. Millions of Israelis rushed to safe rooms or shelters as sirens wailed across the Jewish state.

Palestinians also tried to take precautions, but many had nowhere to go in the densely populated and poorly resourced Gaza Strip.

Riyad Eshkuntana told Reuters news agency he put his daughters to sleep in a room of his house that he thought was the furthest from the explosions. Only one of his daughters, Suzy, six, survived the night. His wife and three other children died.

The Israeli military later said it had been conducting strikes on a militant tunnel system in the area. The tunnels’ collapsed, causing the houses above to collapse as well, leading to unintended civilian casualties, it added.

Latest Worthy News