Israel increases bombings in central Gaza, strikes kill 26 people By Reuters
Written by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Hussam al-Masri
CAIRO – Israeli military strikes killed at least 26 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, emergency services said, as the military stepped up shelling of central areas and tanks moved deeper into the north and south of the area.
The escalation came a day after Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon, ending more than a year of fighting and raising hopes for many Palestinians in Gaza for a similar deal with Hamas, which rules the enclave.
Israel’s military campaign – aimed at eradicating Hamas terrorists after the group attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023 – has killed 2.3 million people.
“I hope that the shooting will be stopped as it happened in Lebanon… I just want to take my children to see my land, my home, to see what they have done, I want to live safely,” said Amal Abu Hmeid. , a woman who was expelled from Gaza.
“God willing, we will have an agreement,” he said, sitting in the courtyard of a school that shelters displaced families in Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip.
The yard was full of dirt and water was flowing from where people were doing their laundry. The clothes were playing outside the classrooms as the children played nearby.
“(Life) was good (before the war)… Now there’s nothing good, it’s over. Our houses are gone, our brothers are gone, there’s no one left. Now we can’t get … We can’t even get bread,” Abu Hmeid told Reuters.
Announcing the agreement in Lebanon on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said that he will now renew his goal of suspending the agreement in Gaza, urging Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.
Months of efforts to negotiate a cease-fire have made little progress, and talks remain on hold.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas, came into effect before dawn on Wednesday, halting the fighting that had escalated in recent months and clouded the conflict in Gaza.
DEATH WENT AWAY
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all of the area’s population at least once, Gaza officials said. A vast area has become a wasteland.
On Thursday, the head of the United Nations Palestinian Relief Agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that at least 70 percent of those killed in Gaza were women and children.
He said Israel’s ongoing offensive on the northern outskirts of Gaza over the past seven weeks has killed 130,000 people.
Hamas-led militias attacked communities in southern Israel 13 months ago, starting a war, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, Israel said.
On Thursday, six people were killed in two separate airstrikes in the house and near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya in the north of the Gaza Strip, and four were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south, which was for doctors. said.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike near a tent camp housing displaced families east of Khan Younis killed at least five people and wounded others, medics said.
In Nuseirat, one of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several airstrikes, destroying a multi-story building and hitting streets outside mosques. About 11 people died in those strikes, according to health officials at the Al-Awda hospital in the camp.
In a statement, they said that a number of families were trapped in their homes after some tanks appeared in the northern part of the camp and ambulances could not reach them due to the explosion of the tank.
Contacted by Reuters, the Israeli army said its forces were continuing to “raids on terrorist targets as part of operations in the Gaza Strip”.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks have penetrated deep into the northwestern part of the city, residents said.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-MughrabiAdditional reporting by Hussam al-Masri in GazaEditing by Angus MacSwan, Gareth Jones, Frances (BCBA:) Kerry, Alexandra Hudson (NYSE:))
