Nearly 100 people, most of them women and children, were killed in Israeli shelling in the early hours of Tuesday in the Gaza Strip, local emergency services said, with the US condemning the “horrific” blow to the Palestinian enclave, which has suffered massive destruction after a year of war.
While the besieged Gaza Strip is facing a humanitarian catastrophe, the adoption yesterday by the Israeli parliament of a law banning all activities of UNRWA, the UN agency described as the “backbone” of humanitarian operations in the small enclave, caused an international outcry.
The Israeli military’s operations in the Gaza Strip were launched after the October 7 attack by Hamas’ military arm against southern Israel. The day after the outbreak of war, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel, before daily exchanges of fire turned into open warfare in September.
In Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, civil protection announced the death of at least 93 Palestinians in a shelling of the “Abu Nasr family residence”, a five-story apartment building, adding that dozens were still trapped in the rubble.
The Israeli military limited itself to announcing that it was looking into “information about an incident” in Beit Lahia.
“The property collapsed in the middle of the night” while the tenants were “sleeping,” said neighbor Rabi al-Sadagli, 30. “In their majority, the victims are women and children. People are trying to save the injured, but there is no hospital and no proper medical care can be provided.”
In the absence of stretchers, bloodied bodies being pulled from the huge pile of rubble and concrete were carried on blankets, an AFP photojournalist found.
Israel’s main international military and political supporter, the US, said it had “reached out” to its ally to demand accountability following this “horrific” bombing with “horrific effect”.
Since October 6, the Israeli army has been conducting a new operation in northern Gaza, centered on Jabalia, where it says Hamas fighters are trying to regroup.
He announced yesterday that he killed “about 40 terrorists” in Jabalia and suffered four casualties in his ranks.
Hamas’ raid on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 killed 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data, which includes hostages killed in captivity or already dead when taken to Gaza .
Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 97 remain hostages in the Gaza Strip, but 34 of the latter have been declared dead by the Israeli army.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to wipe out the Palestinian Islamist movement, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, and has launched wide-scale military retaliatory operations that have killed at least 43,061 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to its Ministry of Health of the Hamas government.
A few months after the Israeli government accused UNRWA employees of being involved in the October 7 attack, the parliament, the Knesset, on Monday passed a law banning all of its activities in Israel.
A second text prohibits Israeli public officials from any cooperation with UNRWA and its workers, which will further complicate the agency’s work.
Israel strictly controls all humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, which is vital for the enclave’s 2.4 million residents, who are at risk of starvation, according to the UN.
Many European capitals strongly criticized the ban, while the State Department reiterated its opposition to the law.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he feared the “disastrous consequences” its implementation would have for the Palestinians in a letter he addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hoping the disputed legislation would not be implemented.
As the cycle of attacks and retaliation between Israel and Iran heightens concerns that the whole of the Middle East will be set ablaze, Israel’s Chief of the National Defense General Staff, General Herchi Halevi, threatened once again yesterday that his army would hit “hard » the Islamic Republic if it retaliates for the October 26 Israeli attack on military targets on Iranian soil.
A sworn enemy of Israel, Iran supports Hamas and Hezbollah, whose leaders were killed by the Israeli armed forces.
Yesterday, Naim Qassem was named the new leader of Hezbollah, replacing Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite Lebanese movement’s secretary-general, who was killed on September 27 in an Israeli bombardment in a southern suburb of Beirut.
But he too may suffer the same fate as his predecessor, threatened Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad: “The countdown has begun,” he said.
In the opposing camp, Iranian President Massoud Pezheskian assured that the appointment of Naim Qassem “will strengthen the resistance”.
In Lebanon, the Israeli army continues the daily intensive air bombardment it has been carrying out since September 23, mainly in areas considered Hezbollah strongholds. It has also been conducting land operations since September 30.
Yesterday, at least 14 people were killed in Israeli shelling near Saida and Sarafad (south), according to Lebanese authorities.
For its part, Hezbollah said it destroyed two Israeli tanks east of Hiam, six kilometers from the border between the two states, in the deepest incursion since Israel’s military began ground operations in late September on Lebanese soil, according to with the Lebanese National News Agency.
Israel says it wants to neutralize Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to allow the return to its north of some 60,000 residents forced from their homes by incessant rocket fire since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip. more than a year ago.
At least 1,750 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official data.
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#Gaza #bloodshed #Israel #dead #Horrible #blow
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