RABAT, March 26. /TASS/. Israel is using military force to completely destroy the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian foreign ministry said.

"[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his ruling right-wing coalition are persistently seeking to attain their vile, undeclared goals of the war solely by military means. The Netanyahu government is preferring the logic of military force to reason, politics and diplomatic efforts to complete the destruction of the Gaza Strip and exterminate all forms of human life there," the WAFA news agency quoted the ministry’s statement.

"Israel continues rejecting all types of international efforts geared to stop the war, protect civilians and their basic humanitarian needs. Netanyahu is trying to conceal his real goals. But the war, as a matter of fact, is geared to deprive the entire Gaza Strip - from the north to the south - of humanitarian services," the ministry stressed.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.

In late November 2023, Hamas announced an agreement with Israel, which was brokered by Egypt and Qatar, on a four-day humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip, which took effect on November 24. The sides extended the ceasefire several times but on the morning of December 1 the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that Hamas had violated the truce in Gaza and opened fire on Israeli territory, thus prompting the IDF to resume combat operations in the Gaza Strip.

The death toll from the ongoing escalation in the Gaza Strip exceeds 32,000 people.