By Elham Asaad Buaras
London (The Muslim News): Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to fully reoccupy the Gaza Strip and rejected any permanent ceasefire, declaring that a pause in fighting would only be considered temporarily—and exclusively—to secure the release of hostages.
“There are certainly 20 hostages still alive in Gaza and up to 38 others believed to have been killed,” Netanyahu said at a press conference at his office in West Jerusalem on Wednesday. “If there is an opportunity for a temporary pause in fighting to return more hostages—I emphasize, a temporary pause—we are open to that.”
His comments come amid mounting international condemnation of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, where at least 53,655 Palestinians have been killed and over 121,950 injured since the conflict erupted in October 2023. The ministry noted that 82 bodies were recovered in the last 24 hours alone, many of them children, and warned that countless victims remain trapped under rubble due to the bombardment and the collapse of emergency services.
The British Government issued its strongest condemnation to date on Tuesday, suspending trade talks with Israel and summoning the Israeli ambassador over what Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, described as “dangerous, repellent, and monstrous” actions.
Addressing MPs in the House of Commons, Lammy condemned Israel’s intensified military campaign and restrictions on aid as violations of international law. “We are now entering a dark new phase in this conflict,” he said. “Netanyahu’s government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.”
He referred to incendiary comments made by Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who suggested “cleansing Gaza” and relocating Palestinians to third countries. Lammy responded: “We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.” His remarks were met with shouts of “genocide” from across the chamber.
Lammy’s intervention follows warnings from Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, French President, Emmanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who jointly expressed concerns about Israel breaching international humanitarian law.
In a further escalation of diplomatic pressure, the UK also imposed sanctions on violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, while describing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “abominable”.
The crisis has been deepened by a severe blockade. For 81 consecutive days, no aid trucks were allowed into the enclave.
On Wednesday, the Government Media Office in Gaza confirmed that 87 trucks carrying food and medical supplies had finally crossed the border—a fraction of the daily minimum of 500 trucks and 50 fuel tankers that aid agencies say are needed to avert famine and infrastructure collapse.
“87 trucks carrying various forms of aid have entered the Gaza Strip so far,” said the office’s Director General, Ismail Al-Thawabteh. “The aid was allocated to several international and local organisations to help meet part of the urgent humanitarian needs of our Palestinian people.”
According to the Media Office, Gaza requires a minimum of 500 trucks daily, along with at least 50 fuel trucks, to prevent famine and total infrastructure collapse.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has condemned the blockade, warning that over 50 children have already died from hunger, with tens of thousands more at risk. “More than eleven weeks after the obstruction of humanitarian access, the food security crisis is deteriorating rapidly,” the committee said on Wednesday, citing UNICEF and WHO data.
“If the blockade continues, more children will die and up to 71,000 children under five could suffer from acute malnutrition over the next year.” The committee described the right to food as “a fundamental human right” and “non-derogable under international law.”
It also “strongly” condemned Israel’s military actions, stating they were killing and maiming children “on a massive daily scale,” with more than 100 children reportedly killed last week alone.
“There is no justification for actions that clearly defy international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law,” the committee declared, referencing the Conventions on the Rights of the Child and the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Human rights groups, both Palestinian and Israeli, have also reported grave abuses in Israeli detention centres, where more than 10,100 Palestinians remain imprisoned under conditions described as involving torture, starvation, and medical neglect.
In the latest Israeli airstrikes, entire families have been wiped out. Seven Palestinians, including children, were killed in Khan Younis and Jabalia when their homes were bombed. In another drone strike near the European Gaza Hospital, four civilians travelling on a cart were killed.
Elsewhere in Gaza, the scale of devastation continued to mount.
In Jabalia, twelve people were killed when Israeli warplanes struck two homes, while a separate drone attack in the same town claimed the lives of seven more civilians.
In Gaza City, six Palestinians were killed in yet another drone strike.
In Deir al-Balah, five people, including three children, were killed and ten others wounded in an airstrike on a residential home. Two children were also reported dead following a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. In the southern town of Abasan, four civilians were killed in an airstrike on a home, while three more lost their lives in the Maen neighbourhood of Khan Younis.
Al-Awda Hospital reported that Israeli forces shelled its third floor in the Tal al-Zaatar area of Jabalia refugee camp. A medical source said 15 bodies were recovered from rubble in separate locations across the enclave.
As the death toll continues to climb and humanitarian agencies issue increasingly urgent warnings, global pressure is mounting on Israel to heed international law and on Western allies to hold it accountable.
But Netanyahu remains defiant. “There will be no ceasefire—except perhaps a temporary pause,” he reiterated, signalling a prolonged and ever more brutal phase of the war.
[Photo: Family members, sitting next to the bodies of their family members who were killed by Israeli attacks at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza on May 22, 2025. Photojournalist: Abed Rahim Khatib/AA]
