Israel said on Friday that it had been targeted by three projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian emergency services announced the death of 16 people in Israeli strikes.
“It’s a tough day for the residents of Gaza due to Israel’s continued bombing,” Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.
According to him, rescuers found the bodies of 16 Palestinians, “including several children”, after airstrikes across the entire territory, both in the north, center and south.
The Israeli army said it had targeted in 24 hours, across the entire Gaza Strip, “around 40 gathering places of Hamas terrorists”, as well as “command centers” of the Palestinian Islamist movement.
She noted that several of these targets were in buildings “that previously served as schools.”
An accusation rejected by Mahmoud Bassal, for whom the Israeli army “commits massacres under the pretext that (Hamas) militants are present”.
Israel has intensified its ground and air offensive in northern Gaza since October 6, saying it wants to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping there.
The army said it dismantled several “armed cells” and “terrorist infrastructures” last week during an operation around the town of Beit Hanoun.
Rocket fire
She also said on Friday that three “projectiles” had been fired towards Israel from northern Gaza, with no injuries reported.
Since last week, Israel has regularly claimed to be the subject of rocket fire from the northern coastal territory, which has been under siege since the start of the war nearly 15 months ago.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened on Wednesday to intensify strikes on Gaza if his country continued to be targeted.
“If Hamas does not soon allow the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza (…) and continues to fire on the Israeli population, it exposes itself to blows of an intensity that Gaza has not seen for a long time “, he warned.
The Israeli army also successively announced on Friday that it had intercepted a missile and a drone coming from Yemen, from where the Houthi rebels, allies of Hamas, have recently launched several attacks on Israel.
Claiming to act in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Houthis, supported by Iran, have regularly targeted Israel, although it is nearly 2,000 kilometers away, since the start of the war in Gaza.
Diplomacy
Despite intense diplomatic efforts led under the aegis of Qatar, no truce has been concluded since the one-week truce at the end of November 2023.
New indirect negotiations in December in Doha revived hopes of a ceasefire associated with a release of hostages, but Hamas and Israel once again accused each other of stopping them.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized Israeli negotiators to continue talks in Qatar.
A Hamas delegation also arrived in Cairo to prepare negotiations in Doha “in the coming days”, according to a movement official.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday it was “deeply alarmed by the devastating impact of winter rains and freezing temperatures” on Palestinians in Gaza displaced by the war.
This situation comes on top of the “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” experienced by the population of Gaza, underlines the IOM.
“Vulnerable people, including at least seven infants, died of hypothermia,” said IOM Director General, American Amy Pope.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures. .
Of 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 96 are still being held hostage in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the Israeli army.
More than 45,500 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli military campaign of reprisals on the Gaza Strip, mainly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health, deemed reliable by the UN.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
