As battles between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers surged to their worst levels since 2014, a heartbreaking video of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl’s reaction to the violence has provided an all-too-human face on the destruction.
Palestinian Nadine Abdel-Taif was recorded on Twitter over the weekend by London-based outlet Middle East Eye, a clip that has now been viewed more than 9 million times.
“You see all this?” she says, as she points to the flattened buildings behind her. “What do you expect me to do? Fix it? I’m only 10.”
“Why do we deserve this? What did we do for this?” she asks. “My family said they just hate us. They just don’t like us because we are Muslims. It’s not fair.”
The Israeli military unleashed a wave of heavy airstrikes on the Gaza Strip early Monday, saying it destroyed 9 miles of militant tunnels and the homes of nine Hamas commanders, as international diplomats worked to end the week of fighting that has killed hundreds of people.
The latest attacks killed a top Gaza leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group whom the Israeli military blamed for some of the thousands of rocket attacks launched at Israel in recent days.
Residents of Gaza awakened by the overnight barrage described it as the heaviest since the war began. The strikes hollowed out one floor of a multistory concrete building. A woman picked through clothing, rubble and splintered furniture in a room that had been destroyed. One strike demolished the wall of one room, leaving untouched an open cabinet filled with bedding inside. Children walked over debris in the road.
President Joe Biden has declined so far to criticize Israel’s part in the fighting or send a top-level envoy to the region. Appeals by other countries showed no sign of progress.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled Monday the U.S. still would not press for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers as fighting entered its second week.
Blinken’s stand comes despite growing pressure from the United States’ U.N. Security Council partners, some Democrats and others for Biden’s administration and other international leaders to wade more deeply into diplomacy to end the worst Israel-Palestinian violence in years and revive long-collapsed mediation for a lasting peace there.
Speaking in Copenhagen, where Blinken is making an unrelated tour of Nordic countries this week, Blinken ticked off U.S. outreach so far to try to deescalate hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel, and said he would be making more calls Monday.
“In all of these engagements we have made clear that we are prepared to lend our support and good offices to the parties should they seek a cease-fire,” Blinken said.
He said he welcomed efforts by the U.N. — where the United States has so far blocked a proposed Security Council statement on the fighting — and other nations working for a cease-fire.
“Any diplomatic initiative that advances that prospect is something that we’ll support,” he said. “And we are again willing and ready to do that. But ultimately it is up to the parties to make clear that they want to pursue a cease-fire.”
Blinken also said he had asked Israel for any evidence for its claim that Hamas was operating in a Gaza office building housing The Associated Press and Al Jazeera news bureaus that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike over the weekend. But he said he personally has “not seen any information provided.”
Blinken’s comments came after U.N. Security Council diplomats and Muslim foreign ministers convened emergency weekend meetings to demand a stop to civilian bloodshed, as Israeli warplanes carried out the deadliest single attacks Sunday in the week of fighting.
Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told an emergency high-level meeting of the Security Council on Sunday that the United States was “working tirelessly through diplomatic channels” to stop the fighting.
Thomas-Greenfield warned the return to armed conflict would only put a negotiated two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict even further out of reach.
However, the United States, Israel’s closest ally, has so far rejected moves by China, Norway and Tunisia in the Security Council for a statement by the U.N.’s most powerful body, including a call for the cessation of hostilities.
In Israel, Hady Amr, a deputy assistant dispatched by Blinken to try to deescalate the crisis, met with officials. Blinken has not announced plans to stop in the Middle East on his current trip.
Rep. Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, urged Biden on Sunday to step up pressure on both sides to end current fighting and revive talks to resolve Israel’s conflicts and flashpoints with the Palestinians.
“I think the administration needs to push harder on Israel and the Palestinian Authority to stop the violence, bring about a cease-fire, end these hostilities, and get back to a process of trying to resolve this long-standing conflict,” Schiff, a California Democrat, told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
And Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, the senior Republican on the foreign relations subcommittee for the region, joined Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the subcommittee chairman, in asking both sides to cease fire. “As a result of Hamas’ rocket attacks and Israel’s response, both sides must recognize that too many lives have been lost and must not escalate the conflict further,” the two said.
Biden focused on civilian deaths from Hamas rockets in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, and a White House readout of the call made no mention of the U.S. urging Israel to join in a cease-fire that regional countries were pushing. Thomas-Greenfield said U.S. diplomats were engaging with Israel, Egypt and Qatar, along with the U.N.
Netanyahu told Israelis in a televised address Sunday that Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” on Hamas. That will “take time,” Netanyahu said, signaling the war would rage on for now.
Representatives of Muslim nations met Sunday to demand Israel halt attacks that are killing Palestinian civilians in the crowded Gaza strip.
At the virtual meeting of the Security Council, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the U.N. was actively engaging all parties for an immediate cease-fire.
Returning to the scenes of Palestinian militant rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes in the fourth such war between Israel and Hamas “only perpetuates the cycles of death, destruction and despair, and pushes farther to the horizon any hopes of coexistence and peace,” Guterres said.
Eight foreign ministers spoke at the Security Council session, reflecting the seriousness of the conflict, with almost all urging an end to the fighting.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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