UN: There is no end to Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip
There is no let-up in Israeli air strikes in Gaza, a United Nations (UN) official said after visiting a hospital struggling to treat the injured, news.ro reports.
"There were new air strikes hitting areas around the hospital [Al-Aqsa] in the middle area and new casualties being brought in. Tragically I saw a nine-year-old boy with a devastating head injury who passed away," Gemma Connell of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told the BBC on Monday (25 December).
"When I say that there were strikes again today and casualties arriving, some of those strikes were in areas that people have been told to evacuate to, which, again goes back to the refrain that, I think, I am so sick of saying: that there is no safe place in Gaza," she added.
She said Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza was "absolute carnage".
Many severely injured people could not be treated because the hospital was "absolutely overloaded", she said.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier vowed to intensify the fight against Hamas.
Netanyahu said he had visited Gaza on Monday morning and that Israel's military campaign there was "not close to being over".
His comments come days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel should lower the intensity of its strikes.
The conflict between Hamas and Israel began on 7 October after the Palestinian group led an attack on communities inside Israel, killing 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and seizing about 240 hostages. Israel says 132 are still being held.
