Israeli attacks kill 110 Palestinian civilians in north Gaza

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 110 Palestinians had been killed since the previous day in Israeli strikes on a northern part of the territory.

In a brief statement, the ministry said "there were 50 martyrs in occupation strikes on houses in Jabalia," bringing the number of deaths to 110 in the area since Sunday.

AFP could not independently verify the toll.

"When planning a target, the IDF (Israeli army) devotes significant time and resources to preparing the attack and where feasible, uses various tools, including advance warnings, roof knocking, street knocking, target clearing operations and a variety of professional calculations," the army told AFP when asked about the strikes in Jabalia.

On Friday, the health ministry in Gaza said at least 18,800 people had been killed since Israel launched its retaliatory offensive in Gaza following Hamas's shock attacks of October 7.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians in a West Bank refugee camp Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said, taking the toll in the occupied territory to over 300 during the Gaza war.

Mohammad Samir Milhem, 17, his brother Hikmat, 24, and Yazan Khatib, 20, were shot in the head by Israeli troops in the Al-Fara camp near Tubas, the ministry said. Rashed Habib al-Aydi, 17, was shot in the chest.

Health officials say 301 Palestinians have now been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the war in Gaza erupted with the attack by Hamas on October 7.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.

Earlier this month Israeli forces shot dead at least six Palestinians including a 14-year-old boy in a raid on the refugee camp, the health ministry said. The army confirmed at that time it had conducted a "counter-terrorism" operation.

In a separate incident on Monday, a 27-year-old woman was wounded in "a shooting towards a car" north of Ramallah, the Magen David Adom emergency medical services said.

She had been travelling with a man and one-month-old baby, who were not injured, near the Ateret settlement and was taken to hospital "in a moderate condition".

Violence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, has flared since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

The deadliest ever Gaza war began with unprecedented attacks by Hamas on October 7, when the group killed 1,139 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250, according to an AFP tally based on updated Israeli figures.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says Israel's retaliatory assault in Gaza has killed more than 18,800 people, mostly women and children.

Israel bombs Gaza amid accusation it is 'starving' Palestinians

Israel kept up heavy bombing of Gaza on Monday as it faced accusations from a human rights group that it is deliberately starving Palestinians in its campaign sparked by the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Fighting raged on in the third month of the bloodiest ever Gaza war, with the Hamas-run health ministry reporting another 110 people killed in strikes on Jabalia, outside Gaza City, since Sunday.

The UN Security Council in New York was set to vote later in the day on another call for a ceasefire in the besieged territory, after previous bids were vetoed by Israel's key ally the United States.

And Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin was expected back in Israel on Monday as part of a Middle East tour aimed at stopping the conflict from spreading further.

The war broke out when Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7, killing around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, and abducting 250.

Gaza's health ministry says Israel's military response has killed more than 18,800 people, mostly women and children, while reducing vast areas to rubble.

International alarm has mounted over the dire plight of 2.4 million Gazans now enduring bombardment, food and water shortages, mass displacement and plummeting winter temperatures.

The New York-based campaign group Human Rights Watch charged that Israel "is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime".

"Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while wilfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival," it wrote in a report.

The Israeli government hit back, accusing HRW of being an "anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organisation".

"Human Rights Watch... did not condemn the attack on Israeli citizens and the massacre of October 7 and has no moral basis to talk about what's going on in Gaza if they turn a blind eye to the suffering and the human rights of Israelis," foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat told AFP.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, earlier said that he "would not be surprised if people start dying of hunger, or a combination of hunger, disease, weak immunity".

Israel has approved aid deliveries into Gaza via its Kerem Shalom crossing, aside from the Rafah crossing with Egypt, and a first truck convoy passed through Kerem on Sunday according to an Egyptian Red Crescent official who asked not to be named.

- 'Fight until the end' -

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday again vowed Israel will "fight until the end" and eliminate Hamas, free the hostages and ensure Gaza will never again become "a centre for terrorism".

The army has reported 127 deaths in Gaza since it launched ground operations in late October.

Israel has accused Hamas of hiding among civilians and in tunnels underneath hospitals, schools, mosques and other civilian infrastructure.

It released a report Sunday of part of a vast Hamas tunnel network, big enough to drive vehicles through, featuring rails, power lines, drainage systems and a communications network.

Israel has faced mounting global pressure to either slow, suspend or stop hostilities -- including from families of the remaining 129 hostages believed held in Gaza.

One freed captive, German-Israeli Raz Ben-Ami, 57, spoke of the "daily humiliation -- mental, physical" she endured, including having just one meal a day and no access to proper toilets.

The families' anger and fear intensified after Israeli forces mistakenly shot dead three hostages who had escaped their captors inside Gaza.

The trio had waved white flags and had used food leftovers to write a Hebrew-language message on a white sheet before they were shot, reports said.

Army chief of staff Herzi Halevi, in a message to troops, stressed that if enemy fighters "lay down their arms and raise their hands, we capture them, we don't shoot them".

"We extract a lot of intelligence from the captives we have, we already have over 1,000."