“Israel” Escalates Gaza Bombardment as US Secretary Rubio Arrives to Back Occupation

By Staff, Agencies

“Israeli” forces have escalated their assault on Gaza City, demolishing at least 30 residential buildings and forcing thousands from their homes, Palestinian officials reported on Sunday, just as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived to discuss the future of the conflict.

Nearly one million Palestinians have been sheltering in Gaza City, which “Israel” has declared its next target in its campaign to eliminate Hamas.

The intensified bombardment follows last week’s airstrike in Doha that attempted to assassinate Hamas’s political leadership, drawing global condemnation.

Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to coordinate a response.

Rubio said Washington’s priorities were focused on hostages and rebuilding, while dismissing the massive Palestinian death toll with the remark: “What’s happened has happened”.

He went on to meet the apartheid “Israeli” entity’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after visiting the Western Wall, reaffirming what the State Department described as “America’s recognition of ‘Jerusalem’ [Al-Quds] as ‘Israel’s’ eternal capital”.

The US policy of legitimizing “Israel’s” illegal annexation of Al-Quds dates back to Donald Trump’s 2017 recognition and the relocation of the US embassy from “Tel Aviv”.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian toll is worsening. UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini announced that Gaza’s Beach camp clinic—the only health facility north of Wadi Gaza—had been forced to shut down.

Ten UNRWA buildings have been struck by “Israeli” fire in the past four days, leaving water and sanitation services at half capacity.

Even Washington has quietly acknowledged unease over “Israel’s” unilateral strike in Doha against Hamas leaders, an escalation that US officials admitted “did not serve US or ‘Israeli’ interests”.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu has pushed ahead with new settlement expansion plans in the occupied West Bank, defying global condemnation and warnings from the UAE that such steps undermine the “Abraham Accords”.

Palestinians in Gaza are bearing the brunt of this aggression. The enclave’s health ministry reported that two more people died from malnutrition in the last 24 hours, raising the total deaths from starvation to 422, including 145 children.

 Aid agencies warn that an “Israeli” takeover of Gaza City would be catastrophic. “The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said displaced resident Musbah al-Kafarna.

Despite “Israel’s” insistence that civilians must evacuate, hundreds of thousands remain trapped with no safe haven. “Israeli” forces have already turned eastern suburbs into wastelands and are now closing in on central and western Gaza City, where most of the displaced are sheltering.

Local authorities estimate that over 64,000 Palestinians have been martyred since October 2023 in “Israel’s” ongoing campaign of destruction and more than 1,600 residential buildings and 13,000 tents have been destroyed since August 11 alone.