GAZA CITY, Palestine

At least 700 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s ongoing offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, resistance group Hamas said on Tuesday.

The Israeli army stepped up its massive assault in northern Gaza amid a suffocating siege that has left tens of thousands of people without food and water.

The onslaught, which began on Oct. 5, was the latest episode in Israel’s brutal onslaught that has killed more than 42,700 people, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 100,300 others since last year following a Hamas attack.

“The Israeli occupation is committing systematic crimes in northern Gaza as part of acts of genocide, including executions, killing civilians, arbitrary detention, forced evacuation, displacement, starvation, and attacking hospitals,” Osama Hamdan, top Hamas representative in Lebanon, said in a recorded speech.

He said the death toll in northern Gaza “does not include those under the rubble or those who can’t be reached by ambulances.”

Hamdan said the “safe passages” designated by the Israeli army “have turned into traps for Palestinians, including women and children.”

“The Palestinian people have the right to make their own choices, and they are the ones who will determine the details of the post-war era, not Israel and the US,” he added.

The Israeli war on Gaza has displaced almost the territory’s entire population amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala