Israel on Thursday killed at least 20 Palestinians, including eight aid seekers, amid intensified attacks targeting Gaza City, a day after the military approved a plan for the complete occupation of Gaza. Besides, two people were starved to death by Israel on Thursday, raising the death toll from hunger and malnutrition to 271, including 112 children.
The intensified attacks come as Israel refused to respond to a ceasefire proposal put forward by Egypt and Qatar, which was accepted by the Palestinian group Hamas.
The proposal contains only slight modifications to an earlier one advanced by the United States and accepted by Israel, according to an Associated Press report citing Egyptian and Hamas officials.
That US proposal was for a 60-day ceasefire, during which some of the remaining Israelis held at Gaza would be released and the sides would negotiate a permanent ceasefire and the return of the rest.
"We are not waiting. We have begun the preliminary actions, and already now, IDF (army) troops are holding the outskirts of Gaza City," the Israeli military said in a statement.
Gaza City residents described relentless bombardments overnight.
"The house shakes with us all night long -- the sound of explosions, artillery, warplanes, ambulances, and cries for help is killing us," one of them, Ahmad al-Shanti, told AFP.
"The sound is getting closer, but where would we go?".
Another resident, Amal Abdel-Aal, said she watched the heavy strikes on the area, a week after being displaced from her home in Gaza City's Al-Sabra neighbourhood.
"No one in Gaza has slept -- not last night, not for a week. The artillery and air strikes in the east never stop. The sky flashes all night long," she added.
Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said air strikes and artillery fire overnight targeted areas to the northwest and southeast of Gaza City.
Israel's plans for the complete occupation of Gaza have faced resistance from both inside and outside the country. Several countries have called for an end to the genocidal war, which has so far killed at least 62,000 Palestinians, more than half of them being women and children. Israel has also targeted and killed at least 270 journalists, over 1000 healthcare workers and aid workers.
Calling Israel's intensified attacks on Gaza "intolerable," the Red Cross on Thursday said the security of humanitarian workers is getting worse by the hour.
"The intensification of hostilities in Gaza means more killing, more displacement, more destruction and more panic," Christian Cardon, chief spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told AFP.
"Gaza is a closed space, from which nobody can escape... and where access to health care, food and safe water is dwindling," said Cardon.
"Meanwhile, the security of humanitarians is getting worse by the hour...This is intolerable," he stressed.
According to the Palestinian NGOs Network, Israel has destroyed 80% of the aid facilities in Gaza.
"Palestinian civil society organizations have been subjected to numerous attacks, resulting in the killing of 230 aid workers, the injury of hundreds more, and the destruction of nearly 80 percent of their headquarters and humanitarian aid facilities," Amjad Shawa, director-general of the Palestinian NGOs Network in the Gaza Strip, was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera.
The recent days have also seen a significant reduction in the humanitarian aid entering the Palestinian territory, where millions are facing starvation and malnutrition.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, just 250 aid trucks have entered the enclave in the past three days, which is far below the 1,800 trucks expected during this timeframe. Besides, most of the aid that entered was looted and never reached the starving Palestinians. The aid, however, did not include "vital food items" including eggs, red meat, fish, dairy products, vegetables and nutritional supplements as Israel continues to block the entry of these products.
The Gaza Media Office said it holds Israel and its allies "fully responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza and urged “the United Nations, Arab and Islamic countries and the international community to take serious action to open the crossings and ensure the flow of aid, especially food, baby formula and life-saving medicines, and to hold the occupation accountable for its crimes against civilians."
Meanwhile, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has announced a diplomatic outreach to counter the mounting international criticism against its genocidal war on Gaza and "help spread the Israeli narrative in international media."
According to a Times of Israel report citing an official statement from the ministry, Israel is planning to arrange the visit of about 400 delegations, involving more than 5,000 participants, by December this year as part of the "battle of perception against the global anti-Israel narrative."
The delegations will include foreign government officials, legislators, journalists, influencers, academics, and people from the legal, religious, cultural and sports worlds, the report said.
Each group will receive "a tailor-made" itinerary catering to their background and influence, it added.