The Israeli Army maintains heavy fighting with the Islamist group Hamas in the north of Gaza, while continuing its offensive in the south of the Palestinian Strip.

Israeli forces reported this Saturday intense clashes in Gaza City, in the north of the Palestinian enclave, where their troops faced “a terrorist cell” in the area of ​​a school in the Shejaiya neighborhood.

“There were exchanges of fire in which all the terrorists in the cell died” and the troops located AK-47 rifles, grenades and ammunition “inside the classrooms,” according to a military statement.

Israel repeatedly accuses the Islamist group Hamas of using educational and medical centers, among other civilian facilities, to hide.

Furthermore, in that Gaza neighborhood, Israeli ground troops attacked a tunnel that “was part of an extensive underground route,” where they found “numerous weapons and an elevator,” according to this source.

Likewise, “they identified several terrorists armed with anti-tank missiles who were approaching the troops in the area,” so they asked a helicopter to attack, preventing them from opening fire on the Israeli troops, he added.

The Israeli Army highlighted that in the Beit Hanoun area, also in the north of the Strip, it attacked “terrorists who fired from a UNRWA school – the UN agency for Palestinian refugees – and a mosque.”

Likewise, Israeli naval troops attacked infrastructure and vessels “used for terrorist purposes,” according to the statement.

More than a hundred people died and more than two hundred were injured in the last few hours in different parts of Gaza due to attacks by the Israeli Army, reported the Ministry of Health in the Strip, controlled by Hamas.

While fighting in the north of Gaza, the Israeli Army is trying to control Khan Yunis in the south, which it considers the “stronghold” of Hamas in the Strip, in its offensive against the Islamist group.

Since the outbreak of the conflict, on October 7, in Gaza there have been at least 17,620 confirmed deaths in the enclave, according to data from the Gaza ministry, and at least 46,739 injured.

The war broke out after a Hamas attack on Israel that day, which caused more than 1,200 deaths and the capture of at least 240 people, taken hostage to Gaza.

There are almost 1.9 million internally displaced people in Gaza, around 80% of its population of some 2.3 million inhabitants, with a serious humanitarian crisis.

Arab countries today expressed their “discontent” over the United States’ second veto of a Security Council resolution to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and demanded that Washington “assume its responsibilities” to promote a truce. in the Palestinian enclave.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey and Palestine expressed in a joint statement their “dissatisfaction with the use of the veto by the United States, which prevented the issuance of a UN Security Council resolution “for a humanitarian truce.

The heads of diplomacy of these countries issued the statement after meeting in Washington with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to whom they demanded that the US “assume its responsibilities and take the necessary measures to push the Israeli occupation towards a ceasefire.” immediate”.

Likewise, they reiterated their rejection of “the continued aggression of the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people”, as well as the rejection of “the forced displacement operations” that Israel “seeks to implement” in the Gaza Strip, while they recalled ” the importance of adhering to international humanitarian law.

For his part, the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Abulgueit, thanked the 97 countries that sponsored the resolution and the 13 members of the Security Council for “believing in respect for international law.”

“Unfortunately, the Security Council was prevented from adopting the correct political and moral stance to stop this insane aggression,” Abulgueit said on X (formerly Twitter).

It is the second time since the Gaza war began that the United States has vetoed a resolution along these lines – it did so on October 18 -, thus aligning itself with Israel, which argues that this ceasefire would help Hamas to rearm and maintain captive the 138 hostages in the Strip.

This last vote was at the request of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, who this week resorted to an exceptional mechanism of the organization’s founding charter, article 99, which enables him to request the intervention of the Council in cases of serious threats to peace and security in the world.