Israel strikes across Gaza as U.S. says it will block another cease-fire resolution at UN

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 18; U.S. to veto UN ceasefire, seeks cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 18 persons overnight and into Sunday, according to medics and witnesses, as the United States said it would veto another draft U.N. ceasefire resolution.

The US, Israel's top ally, instead hopes to broker a cease-fire agreement and hostage release between Israel and Hamas, and envisions a wider resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back, calling Hamas' demands “delusional” and rejecting U.S. and international calls for a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

His Cabinet adopted a declaration on Sunday saying Israel “categorically rejects international edicts on a permanent arrangement with the Palestinians" and opposes any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, which it said would “grant a major prize to terror” after the October 7 attack that triggered the war.

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until “total victory” over Hamas and to expand it to Gaza's southernmost town of Rafah, where more than half the enclave's population of 2.3 million Palestinians has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.

The head of the World Health Organization, meanwhile, said Nasser Hospital, the main medical centre serving southern Gaza, “is not functional anymore” after Israeli forces raided the facility in the southern city of Khan Younis last week.

An airstrike in Rafah overnight killed six persons, including a woman and three children, and another strike killed five men in Khan Younis, the main target of the offensive over the past two months. Associated Press journalists saw the bodies arrive at a hospital in Rafah.

In Gaza City, which was isolated, largely evacuated and suffered widespread destruction in the initial weeks of the war, an airstrike flattened a family home, killing seven people, including three women, according to Sayed al-Afifi, a relative of the deceased.