China said Thursday it was “deeply disappointed” by the United States’ decision to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause” in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“China is deeply disappointed in the United States’ obstruction of the Security Council’s adoption of a draft resolution on the Palestinian issue,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, calling on the Security Council to “play its role in reaching a ceasefire and stopping the war”.

For 12 days, Israel has carried out a withering bombardment of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the killing of 1,400 people who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death in shock cross-border attacks launched by Hamas on October 7.

More than 3,470 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli air strikes, according to health officials.

Gazans combed through the debris of the devastated hospital, collecting the bodies of the dead in the battered enclave Wednesday, hours after a strike killed hundreds sheltering at the facility.

Alongside rows of charred vehicles, volunteers recovered corpses and limbs that were placed in body bags, while the remains of others were covered in white shrouds and blankets.

“This is a massacre,” Ahmed Tafesh, who assisted in the recovery effort, told AFP, saying he had collected the eyes, arms, legs and heads of the deceased.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life.”

Health authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza said the explosion killed 471 people at the Ahli Arab Hospital and was caused by an Israeli air strike, one of the thousands it has launched in retaliation for the Islamist group’s bloody October 7 attack on communities near the enclave.

Israel has denied responsibility and blamed a faulty militant rocket.

During a solidarity visit to Israel on Wednesday, US President, Joe Biden, backed the ally’s account that Palestinian militants caused a devastating hospital strike in Gaza, adding Hamas had brought “only suffering.”

“I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden said as he opened a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.

“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure so we have to overcome a lot of things,” Biden said. (AFP)

•People inspect the damage at Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza on October 18, 2023, following a blast which ripped through it a day earlier killing hundreds.

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