Region
Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 21; genocide toll rises to 38,848
Devastation, deaths, hunger mark Gaza war
Palestinians remove debris at a UN-run school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, yesterday.
Displaced Palestinians wait to receive for food at a food distribution point, in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday.
Israeli forces bombarded the Gaza Strip’s historic refugee camps in the centre of the enclave and struck Gaza City in the north yesterday, killing at least 21 people, and tanks pushed deeper into Rafah in the south, health officials and residents said.
A barrage of Israeli airstrikes killed 16 in Zawayda town, Bureij and Nuseirat camps and the overcrowded city of Deir Al-Balah, the last major urban centre in Gaza not to be invaded by Israeli forces, health officials said.
At least 38,848 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive since October 7, Gaza health authorities say.
In Rafah, residents said Israeli tanks advanced deeper in the western side of the city and took position on a hilltop there.
At Al-Amal Hospital, run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Palestinian health officials exhumed at least 12 bodies buried inside the medical facility to rebury them at another location.
Reuters journalists saw medical workers digging up bodies from graves inside the facility, wrapping them in white shrouds before placing them inside vehicles for transfer to a new burial site as some relatives watched, some in tears.
The fighting has pushed the 60-bed Red Cross field hospital in Rafah to the brink of capacity, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement.
More than a million people had sought shelter in Rafah from fighting further north, but most have scattered again since Israel launched an offensive in and around the city in May.
Diplomatic efforts by Qatar and Egypt to halt the hostilities, backed by the US, appear on hold, though all sides say they are open to more talks, including Israel and Hamas.
US envoy heading to ME for Gaza talks
US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk was travelling to the Middle East for consultations on the Gaza conflict, a US official said. The official had no further details on his planned discussions at this time. The United States and its allies have been trying to negotiate a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Netanyahu blocks minister’s order to build Gaza hospital
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday overruled an order by his defence minister to build a field hospital in Israel to treat sick Gaza children, officials said.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced this week that he had ordered the building of a “temporary hospital” in Israel to treat sick children from Gaza. But the prime minister’s office announced suddenly that Netanyahu “does not approve the establishment of a hospital for Gazans within Israeli territory – therefore, it will not be established”.
