At least 27 Palestinians were killed early Thursday in Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

The overall death toll of Palestinians is nearing 19,000.

The Israeli army carried out airstrikes on wide areas in the northern and southern Gaza Strip, particularly targeting the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, the agency cited local sources as saying.

The military artillery also shelled the neighbourhoods of Al-Daraj and Al-Tuffah in the east of Gaza City, as well as the town of Jabalia in the northern part of the enclave, the agency added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel will continue its war in Gaza until it achieves victory against Hamas.

His comments come a day after the UN General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution demanding a ceasefire.

Also, Israel’s foreign minister has said it will continue the war in Gaza “with or without international support”.

A ceasefire at this stage of the conflict would be “a gift” to Hamas and allow it to return, Eli Cohen warned.

And in his strongest comments yet, US President Joe Biden said Israel was losing support worldwide because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.                                                               …./2..

Israel’s ambassador to the UK ruled out the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday.

“I think it’s about time for the world to realize the Oslo paradigm failed on Oct. 7 and we need to build a new one,” said Tzipi Hotovely, referring to the day the Palestinian group Hamas launched a cross-border attack against Israel.

“Israel knows today and the world should know now that the reason the Oslo Accords failed was because the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel, they want to have a state from the river to the sea,” she added.

Hotovely asked the interviewer, Mark Austin, why he was “obsessed” with the two-state solution after he asked her whether it was dead.

Asked for her thoughts on US President Joe Biden’s remarks that Israel is losing support over its “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza, she said “Americans were fighting ISIS in Mosul, (Iraq). You had much more people that got killed in Mosul proportionally than the people in Gaza.”

Hotovely added that Israel is “doing everything to prevent casualties.”

She also pointed out the need for addressing the education issue in Gaza and said UN schools are “becoming terror schools.”

Asked whether by reeducation she means like the China model, she rejected it, adding: “You’re not learning from your history,” noting that Japan and Germany “turned out to be good Western countries” after World War II.

In interviews with Sky News in October, Hotovely failed to admit there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying Israel is not bombing civilians in the besieged enclave.

Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip from the air and land, imposed a siege and mounted a ground offensive in retaliation for a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 18,608 Palestinians have been killed and 50,594 injured in the Israeli onslaught since then, according to Gaza’s health authorities.

The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack stood at 1,200, while around 139 hostages remained in captivity, according to official figures.