Gaza Civil Defense announced Saturday that at least 19 people, including eight children, had been killed in several Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory, the scene of nearly 15 months of war between the Islamist movement Hamas and Israel.
According to Gazan emergency services, a daybreak airstrike on the al-Ghoul family home in Gaza City left 11 people dead, including seven children and a woman.
“The house, which sheltered several displaced people, was completely destroyed,” Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP. “It was a two-story building and several people are still under the rubble. “Israeli drones also fired shots, including at paramedics.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.
AFP images in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, show residents searching through still-smoldering rubble and bodies lined up on the ground, wrapped in white sheets.
“A big explosion woke us up, everything shook. I was surprised to see that it was the house of our neighbors, the al-Ghoul family. It was inhabited by children and women. There was no one wanted or who represented a danger,” testified Ahmed Moussa.
Gaza Civil Defense also indicated that five security agents, responsible for accompanying humanitarian convoys, were killed by an Israeli strike while they were driving in Khan Younes, in the south of the Palestinian territory.
Mahmoud Bassal accused the Israeli army of having “deliberately targeted” them in order to “affect the humanitarian chain and increase the suffering” of the Gazan population. To which the army has not yet responded.
Local emergency services also announced the death of three members of the same family, including a child, in the bombing of their house in Khan Younes.
The war in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.
At least 45,717 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation in Gaza, including 59 in the last 24 hours, according to the latest report on Saturday from the Hamas Ministry of Health, whose data is judged reliable by the UN.
