• Fatah urges Hamas to cede power to safeguard ‘Palestinians’ existence’
• Pakistan urges UN Security Council to initiate steps to end conflict

GAZA CITY/NEW YORK: At least seven Palestinians, including children of the same family, were massacred by Israeli strike in Gaza City in the north of the enclave on Saturday.

Sameh al-Mashharawi said “seven people were martyred” in a strike on his family’s house that killed his two brothers, their children and wives.

Saturday’s flare-up came five days into Israel’s renewed offensive against Hamas fighters in Gaza, which shattered the relative calm since a Jan 19 ceasefire there.

Gaza health authorities also said five Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire in a separate incident, including a child, in incidents in Beit Lahiya and Gaza City in the north of the enclave. An Israeli airstrike on the city of Rafah, which abuts Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, killed two Palestinians, Gazan medics said.

Israel said it “fully coordinated” with Washington. Hamas took issue on Saturday with Washing­ton’s characterisation of its position, insisting that it stood ready to release all its remaining prisoner as part of a second stage of the ceasefire.

“The claim that ‘Hamas chose war instead of releasing the hostages’ is a distortion of the facts,” the group said.

When the first stage of the ceasefire expired early this month, Israel rejected negotiations for the promised second stage, calling instead for the return of all its remaining prisoners under an extended first stage.

Fatah’s call

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement called on its rivals Hamas on Saturday to relinquish power in order to safeguard the “existence” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“Hamas must show compassion for Gaza, its children, women and men,” Fatah spokesman Monther al-Hayek said in a message sent from Gaza. He called on Hamas to “step aside from governing and fully recognise that the battle ahead will lead to the end of Palestinians’ existence” if it remains in power in Gaza.

Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007 from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, and subsequent attempts at reconciliation have failed.

The territory has been devastated by an Israeli offensive.

Following disagreement over the next steps in a Jan 19 ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, Israel resumed air strikes on Tuesday, followed by ground operations the day after.

Israel’s defence minister said on Friday that he had ordered the army to “seize more territory in Gaza”. “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages (prisoners), the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel,” Katz said.

‘Indefinite and continuous’ ceasefire

Pakistan has called on the UN Security Council to demand that Israel immediately halt its military attacks in Gaza and push for an “indefinite and continuous” ceasefire in the besieged enclave so as to restore humanitarian access.

Speaking during a debate on the humanitarian situation in Gaza in the 15-member Council, Ambassador Munir Akram highlighted that over 90 per cent of Gaza’s population faces starvation due to Israel’s blockade, with new-born babies are dying.

“Civilian structures hospitals, schools, and mosques are being destroyed on the pretext of targeting combatants, and every principle of international law, including international humanitarian law, has been violated”, Ambassador Akram said in his last statement to the Council as he completes his term on March 30.

“But”, he said, “Israel has vowed to continue the slaughter irrespective of its consequences for Palestinian civilians. It is doing so with impunity knowing well that the world, and this Council, will be deterred from taking any action to enforce its resolutions calling for a ceasefire and an end to the mounting atrocities.” Daily military raids, settler violence and illegal land annexations are part of a systematic effort to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people in the West Bank, the Pakistani envoy said.

“The Security Council, and the world community, cannot sit back and watch this ongoing ethnic cleansing,” Ambassador Akram said. “A failure to halt this brutal war will unleash the worst instinct of powerful and predatory States”, he said, urging the elected Council members to initiate measures to end this cruel conflict.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2025