Israeli strikes kill 30 in Gaza, 3 in West Bank as conflict with Hamas, Hezbollah broadens
by Wafaa Shurafa & Samy Magdy | The Associated Press, https://www.facebook.com/, https://www.facebook.com/BusinessMirror/ · BusinessMirrorDEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip—An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza has killed at least 20 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Tuesday, as Israel wages a nearly month-long air and ground operation in what was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory.
Separate strikes elsewhere in Gaza early Tuesday killed another 10 people, according to health officials.
The strike late Monday hit a home where several displaced families were sheltering in the town of Beit Lahiya, near the border with Israel, according to Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of the recently raided and barely functioning Kamal Adwan Hospital, which received the casualties.
The dead included eight women and six children, according to a list provided by the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel launched the offensive in the north after saying Hamas militants had regrouped there. The army has returned to several areas of Gaza multiple times after previous operations, as Hamas continues to carry out hit-and-run attacks on troops and fire occasional rockets into Israel.
The military has ordered the complete evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the nearby town of Beit Hanoun and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, and has allowed almost no humanitarian aid into the area for over a month. That has drawn rebukes from the Biden administration, which has warned that US laws might force it to curb military aid to Israel if more aid is not allowed in.
Tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement within the besieged territory. Around 90% of the population of 2.3 million have fled during the war, often multiple times.
The three hospitals serving the area have been largely inaccessible because of the fighting, and ambulances have stopped operating. Israeli troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital last month, saying Hamas militants were sheltering there, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials.
The offensive has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel is implementing a surrender-or-starve plan for northern Gaza proposed by former generals, in which civilians would be ordered out, aid would be cut off and anyone remaining would be considered a fighter.
The Israeli military has denied receiving such orders, but the government has not said whether it is adopting part or all of the plan.
Palestinian officials said a separate wave of Israeli strikes early Tuesday killed 10 people, including four children and two women.
One strike hit a house in the Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City, killing two children and their parents, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. Two other children were wounded, it said.
In the central town of Zuweida, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent where a displaced family was sheltering, killing four people, including a mother and her two children, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah. Another strike hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing two people, the hospital said. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital morgue.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. It rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, taking another 250 people hostage. Around 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll but says over half of those killed were women and children.
3 killed in West Bank
Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have killed three people in the occupied West Bank.
Two were killed in an airstrike early Tuesday near the northern city of Jenin, a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. A third person was shot in the village of Tamoun, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said it called in an airstrike on a militant cell near Jenin. There was no immediate comment on the shooting.
Israeli forces have carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank since Hamas’ October 7 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the Israel-Hamas war. The Health Ministry says at least 767 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then. Most appear to have been militants killed in battles with Israeli forces, but the dead also include civilian bystanders and people killed during protests.
Israel says the raids are aimed at dismantling Hamas in the West Bank and preventing attacks. Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis since the start of the war.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
Magdy reported from Cairo
Image credits: AP/Mahmoud Illean
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