Abbas tells US it must intervene to stop Israeli aggression against Palestinians

RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday told US national security advisor Jake Sullivan that Israel's attack on Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, must stop, the official WAFA news agency reported on Friday.

Abbas told Sullivan during their meeting in Ramallah that the United State must "intervene to force Israel to stop its aggression against our people in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem," WAFA said.

Israeli forces and Hamas battled fiercely throughout Gaza on Friday, witnesses said, suggesting Israel's ground offensive was meeting stiffer resistance as the U.S. said it expected its ally to alter a war strategy that has inflicted a huge death toll.

Residents in the small enclave reported fighting in Sheijaia, Sheikh Radwan, Zeitoun, Tuffah, and Beit Hanoun in north Gaza, east of Maghazi in central Gaza and in the centre and northern fringes of the main southern city of Khan Younis.

Hospitals in Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah reported a new influx of dead and wounded early on Friday including two children. Four people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Rafah and Israeli tanks were shelling targets just east of the city near the Egyptian border, medics and witnesses said.

The Israeli military said in an update on Friday its forces had destroyed a Hamas command and control hub in Gaza City's Sheijaia district, conducted a "targeted raid" on militant infrastructure in Khan Younis, and bombed sites in the Rafah area that helped Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

The heavy fighting, confirmed by many residents and militant sources reached by Reuters, raised questions about whether Israel's two-month-long aerial and ground blitz of Gaza has significantly weakened Hamas, which it has vowed to annihilate.