Israeli strike kills top rescue official in Gaza as fighting intensifies By Reuters
Written by Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – An Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia on Sunday killed Mohammad Morsi, the deputy director of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service in the northern Gaza Strip, and four of his family members, health officials said.
The Civil Emergency Service said in a statement that Morsi's death brought to 83 the number of its members killed by Israeli fire since October 7.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on Morsi's death.
Residents say that the Israeli army also bombed several houses in the neighborhood of Zeitoun in Gaza City, which is five kilometers away from Jabalia. The medical teams said that they could not answer the calls of some of the residents who reported that they were trapped in their houses, while others were injured.
“We hear bombardments every day in Zeitoun, we know they are blowing up houses there, we don't sleep because of the sounds of explosions, the roar of tanks can be heard nearby and the drones don't stop circling,” said another resident of Gaza. The city, which is located 1 km away.
“This operation is ending Zeitoun, we are afraid of the people trapped there,” he told Reuters via an interview process, declining to be identified.
Later on Sunday, the Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli military strikes across the area killed at least 15 people.
Residents of central and southern Gaza reported internet and communications disruptions, which the Palestinian Telecommunication Company said was due to “continuing (Israeli) violence.”
Palestinians say the internet and communication outages, the first in months, are hampering medical workers from sending ambulances to bombed areas and making it difficult for people to check on their relatives or report attacks.
Israel and Hamas continued to blame each other for the failure of mediators, including Qatar, Egypt and the US, to establish a ceasefire. The US is preparing to launch a new proposal, but the prospects for success appear dim as the gaps between the parties' positions remain wide.
Meanwhile on Sunday the United Nations, in collaboration with the local health authorities, extended by a day the campaign to vaccinate children in the southern Gaza Strip against polio before moving north on Monday.
The campaign aims to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio outbreak in nearly 25 years. A pause in the fighting allowed the campaign to continue.
UN officials said they are making progress, having reached more than half of the children in need of drops in the first two phases in the southern and central Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on October 7 when the Hamas militant group attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and abducting about 250 people, according to Israeli figures.
Israel's subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million people, causing famine and leading to accusations of genocide at the World Court, which Israel has denied.
The Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants in its casualty reports, but health officials say most of the dead have been civilians.
Israel, which has lost 340 soldiers in Gaza, says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are soldiers.
