Israel bombs Gaza targets after US vetoes rare UN ceasefire bid

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Israel bombarded targets in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid for a ceasefire in the war with Hamas that has triggered alerts of an "apocalyptic" humanitarian situation.

Aid workers say Gaza's humanitarian system is on the verge of collapse, as disease and starvation threaten.

Washington's veto was swiftly condemned by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, whose health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,490, mostly women and children.

An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.

It added that, over a 24-hour period, 71 dead and 160 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah city following persistent bombings.

Repeated volleys of automatic weapons fire was heard Saturday in Gaza's north, in live footage aired by AFPTV.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, said it fired rockets Saturday towards Reim in southern Israel, where Hamas gunmen killed 364 people, Israel says, at a musical festival on October 7.

Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas after its unprecedented attacks of that day, when militants broke through Gaza's militarised border to kill around 1,200 people and seize hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israel.

Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.

"It's so cold, and the tent is so small. All I have are the clothes I wear," said Mahmud Abu Rayan, displaced from Beit Lahia in the north.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres triggered the rare Security Council vote by invoking a measure unused in decades.

He sought the council's endorsement of a ceasefire because, he said, rapidly deteriorating current conditions make it "impossible for meaningful humanitarian operations", with potentially irreversible implications for regional peace and security.

The United States on Friday vetoed the Security Council resolution.

US envoy Robert Wood said it was "divorced from reality" and