Israeli strikes kill 40 in Gaza

The Gaza Civil Defense said on Sunday that Israeli strikes on Sunday in different locations in the Gaza Strip left at least 40 people dead, including an Al Jazeera journalist and three rescue workers.

The Qatari channel said its cameraman Ahmed al-Louh was killed “in an Israeli bombardment” on the Nusseirat refugee camp, in the center of the besieged Palestinian territory.

Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said rescuers found 18 bodies before dawn, while dozens of people were injured.

The dead included four people killed in a bombing of a house in central Gaza City. Four others were killed and eight injured in a strike on a tent housing dozens of displaced people in Deir el-Balah, a town in the center of the Palestinian territory, according to the same source.

Mr. Bassal said at least three children were among the dead.

In the evening, the spokesperson told AFP that another strike targeting the Ahmed bin Abdoul Aziz school in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, had left more than 12 dead, including children, and 35 injured.

He also said six people were killed in a strike on a house in Al-Shoujaiya, east of Gaza City.

Contacted by AFP about the various strikes, the Israeli army confirmed in a statement on Sunday that it had carried out strikes on the areas of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia.

“In Beit Lahia, Israeli troops eliminated terrorists and located and dismantled large quantities of weaponry, including explosives and dozens of grenades,” the statement said.

In another statement, the army reported targeting a clinic in northern Gaza, saying it was used by Hamas fighters as a “command and control center” as well as a weapons storage site.

“Shortage”, “martyrdom”

Mr. Bassal confirmed the death of the Al Jazeera journalist in the strike on the Nousseirat camp, which also cost the lives of three Civil Defense rescuers. This is the fifth Al Jazeera journalist killed since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023.

The army, for its part, claimed that this journalist had been a commander of Islamic Jihad in this area.

It was triggered by the unprecedented attack that day by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Israel, which resulted in displacement within the Palestinian territory for the vast majority of the 2.4 million residents, often on multiple occasions.

The Israeli army has been carrying out military operations in the north of the Gaza Strip for several weeks, the objective of which it believes is to prevent the regrouping of Hamas fighters. The army claims to have eliminated dozens of “terrorists” there.

The fighting also caused casualties among healthcare workers, further worsening the situation of the health system in the Gaza Strip plunged into a serious humanitarian crisis after more than 14 months of war.

“We are suffering from a shortage of medical personnel due to the targeting and martyrdom of a large number of doctors and nurses,” Hossam Abou Safiyeh, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north, told reporters. from the Gaza Strip.

He said airstrikes and artillery shelling continued to target the hospital and its surroundings, exacerbating the crisis and endangering both patients and medical staff.

The Israeli army denied directly targeting the hospital.

The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip. .

The Israeli offensive has left at least 44,976 dead in the Gaza Strip, the majority civilians, according to the latest data Thursday from the Hamas Ministry of Health for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.