Pleas for aid and peace resonate for Gazans

At least to the chief of the embattled United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, the yearlong conflict in the Middle East seems especially gloomy under incessant Israeli strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure across the region, as, despite "all wars having rules", "all of those rules have been broken".

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, besides calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, said the world "must not become numb" in a post on X on Sunday.

Israeli attacks on civilians, aid workers, journalists, medical workers, schools and hospitals, with huge military backing from the United States, have become commonplace in the name of pursuing and rooting out Palestine's Hamas militants.

In besieged northern Gaza, in the barely functioning Kamal Adwan Hospital before Christmas, at least 20 patients and medical staff were injured, forcing the hospital president to issue an urgent plea, calling for a safe corridor for delivering essential aid to healthcare facilities.

Gaza-based NGO Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said in a statement published on Monday that the Kamal Adwan Hospital has been targeted over 20 times by Israeli forces in recent days, causing severe damage, including the burning of the ICU. Some 20 people, including patients and medical staff, were also injured. The Israeli army also detonated remote-controlled explosives and stated its intention to shut down the hospital and evacuate its patients.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher had warned on Monday that the "near-total siege" of north Gaza was "raising the specter of famine", while conditions in extremely overcrowded south Gaza were creating "horrific living conditions and even greater humanitarian needs" with winter approaching.

According to an UNRWA report on Sunday, some parts of the North Gaza Governorate have been under a tightened siege for more than 10 weeks.

Access remained "extremely challenging" and its partners' ongoing attempts to deliver aid into these besieged areas "continue to be largely prevented", leaving up to 15,000 people without access to food, water, electricity, or healthcare.

At least 1.9 million people, or about 90 percent of the population, across the Gaza Strip have been displaced.

But even after more than 45,500 deaths in Gaza, including admissions of assassinations of Hamas leaders and militants and Hezbollah's top leaders in recent months, coordinated pager blasts in Lebanon, the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, orders from the world's top courts, arrest warrants, and UN resolutions and advisories, Israel has shown no signs of halting its military campaign, with women and children suffering maximum casualties.

The Israel Defense Forces had long claimed that Hamas had been using civilians as human shields. In a 2014 report on its website, the IDF claimed: "Innocent bystanders can be killed as a result of Hamas' abuse of its own civilians."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, on many occasions, defended Israel's right to self-defense since Hamas attacked Israel last year.