[Tee tiong huat]

CAIRO/GAZA/JERUSALEM: Israel announced its worst combat losses in more than a month on Wednesday (Dec 13) after an ambush in the ruins of Gaza, and faced growing diplomatic isolation as civilian deaths mounted and a humanitarian catastrophe worsened in the Palestinian territory.

Intense fighting was under way both north and south Gaza, day after UN demanded immediate humanitarian ceasefire. US Joe Biden said the "indiscriminate" bombing of civilians is costing international support. The Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu said military would fight on despite international pressure for a ceasefire.

"We're continuing until the end, until victory, until Hamas is annihilated."
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/is...ws-3987451

UNRWA. Chief UN’s Palestinian refugee Philippe Lazzarini, says people in Gaza are so hungry they are stopping aid trucks, taking the food and eating it right away.

“This is how desperate and hungry they are,” the UNRWA chief told reporters. “I witnessed this first hand. We meet more and more people who haven’t eaten for one, two or three days.” He said this was his third visit to Gaza since 7 October, and the situation there is declining rapidly.

Rafah has quadrupled its numbers of people overnight. It lacks infrastructure and all the basics. It is not a place to hold more than one million people. One warehouse is home to 30,000 people. Families live in tiny spaces only separated by blankets and plastic sheeting.”

He said that his agency has almost no access to the north of Gaza anymore and the operating environment in Gaza is becoming “more and more impossible”

At least 18,787 Palestinians have been killed and 50,897 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health spokesman said in a statement on Thursday.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...-palestine