GAZA, Nov 10 (Reuters) – The United States on Friday expressed growing concern about the rising Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip where health officials said the number killed in a five-week-old Israeli bombardment had topped 11,000.
Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants escalated near and around Gaza City’s besieged and overcrowded hospitals, which Palestinian officials said were hit by explosions and gunfire.
In his strongest comments to date on the plight of civilians caught in the Gaza cross-fire, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on a visit to India: “Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks.”
Blinken welcomed daily four-hour humanitarian Israeli pauses that the White House announced on Thursday but said more action was needed to protect Gaza’s civilians.
Israel has faced growing calls for restraint in its month-long war with Hamas but says the Islamist militants, who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and took hostages, would exploit a truce to regroup.
“Israel is now launching a war on Gaza City hospitals,” said Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, director of Al Shifa hospital.
He said later that at least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Al-Buraq school in Gaza City, where people whose homes had been destroyed were sheltering.
