With no end in sight, Israel continued to pound the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as its murderous conflict on them neared its 100th day.
Ten persons were murdered in an Israeli airstrike on a home in the southern city of Rafah that was providing shelter to two displaced families, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
A relative named Bassem Arafeh held up a picture of a deceased girl holding a piece of bread and said the families in Rafah were having dinner on Friday night when the house was hit.
“This child died while she was hungry, while she was eating a piece of bread with nothing on it, where is the International Criminal Court to see how the children die?” Arafeh said. “Where are the Muslims … and the world leaders?”
Israel claims that while it fights Hamas in the heavily populated Palestinian enclave, it targets fighters and takes all reasonable precautions to limit damage to civilians.
However, the severity of the humanitarian crisis and the death toll in Gaza have horrified the international community and fueled increasing calls for a ceasefire.
The Israeli military declared on Saturday that it had eliminated a large number of combatants in the central Gaza Strip and the southern Khan Younis area. It said it was investigating into the purported strike in Rafah.
According to Hamas, its members opened fire on an Israeli helicopter in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
Residents of the center Gaza Strip reported heavy fighting, tank shelling, and Israeli airstrikes in the neighborhoods of Al-Bureij, Al-Nusseirat, and Al-Maghazi, which are home to 1948 war refugees and their descendants.
According to the Israeli military, it attacked fighters as well as a Hamas command center in those regions. On the outskirts of Deir Al-Balah, a town to the west, where Israel had been advising locals to take refuge, Israeli forces were also seen.
Witnesses claimed to have seen an Israeli missile strike a bus close by. No casualties were reported right away.
In Gaza City’s Daraj neighborhood, Beit Lahiya, and northern Gaza, there have been over 20 confirmed deaths.
Israel has declared a new phase of the war and withdrew some of its forces from northern Gaza, where they had been stationed for three weeks following the fighters’ October 7th onslaught through southern Israel, which began the conflict that will turn one hundred years old on Sunday.
In the last 24 hours, 135 Palestinians were killed and 312 injured by Israeli strikes, according to spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra for the Gaza Health Ministry. He said that since October 7, 23,843 Palestinians—mostly civilians—have died in all.
Israel claims that it has already killed at least 8,000 fighters and that it is forced to overthrow Hamas in Gaza as a result of the fighters’ 1,200 deaths, the most of which were civilians, and their kidnapping of 240 hostages.
A few physicians at Nasser Hospital claimed that the current “collapsed” healthcare system was causing them difficulties.
In footage obtained by Reuters, patients were shown laying on stretchers on the floor in hallways while medical professionals examined patients’ eyes using their phones’ flashlights.
The majority of the ICU’s medical supplies are missing, according to physician Muhammad Al-Qidra. “We don’t have any therapies or vacant beds. The majority of the medications at the emergency department are insufficient for the patients. We’re looking for options.
Several of the displaced are sharing hospital wards.
“They tell us they don’t have medicine when we ask for it, and the situation is dire. “We are experiencing windy and cold weather here,” stated Mahmoud Jaber, a Gaza City native who was forced to flee his home.
The majority of the 2.3 million people living in Gaza are displaced.
“Sheikh Zayed City was one of the beautiful cities of Gaza before the war, it used to house thousands of people, but it is now destroyed,” said Mahmoud Salama, a freelance Palestinian journalist touring the northern town after Israeli tanks had gone. “The reality is more difficult than the footage.”
Three Palestinians who were equipped with knives, a gun, and an axe attempted to break into a Jewish community in the occupied West Bank and were slain, according to the Israeli military. Violence in the area had already been on the rise before to October 7 and has subsequently worsened.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported the dead were aged 15, 17 and 19. According to Israel, the attackers broke over the outside fence of the settlement Adora, which is close to the Palestinian city of Hebron, and injured an Israeli soldier in the ensuing gunfight.
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