Israel launches offensive on Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, killing at least 32,000 Palestinians
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Israel bombed at least three homes in Rafah overnight, renewing fears among the more than a million people taking refuge in the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip that a long-threatened ground attack could be imminent.
Health officials said one of the strikes killed 11 people in a family.
Mussa Dhaheer watched from downstairs as neighbors helped emergency workers lower a victim in a black body bag from upstairs. He said he woke up to the explosion, kissed his horrified daughter, and rushed outside to look for rubble. His 75-year-old father and 62-year-old mother were both killed.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I can’t understand what’s happening. My parents. My father and his displaced friends from Gaza City,” he told Reuters.
“They were all together and suddenly they were all gone like dust.”
Speaking at another bomb site, Jamil Abu Houri said the intensified airstrikes were Israel’s way of showing defiance to last week’s U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Next, he worried about a ground attack on Rafah, which Israel has threatened to do despite pleas from its closest ally, Washington, that it would cause too much harm to civilians.
“The bombing has increased, they are threatening to invade us, they say they have given the green light for Rafah’s invasion. Where is the Security Council?” said Abu Houri.
“Look at our kids. Look at our kids. Where should we go? Where should we go?”
Separately, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Wednesday that bloodshed that coincided with the Gaza war in the Israeli-occupied West Bank continued to worsen, with an Israeli attack on Jenin overnight killing three Palestinians and wounding four others.
At least 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, with thousands more believed to have yet to be found under the rubble, according to the local health ministry. The war began after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.
Israeli forces north of Rafah late last week imposed a blockade on the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, Amal Hospital and Nasser Hospital. In the north, they are still operating inside the enclave’s largest hospital, Al Shifa, which they attacked more than a week ago.
Israel says the hospitals have been used by Hamas militants, but Hamas and medical staff deny this. The Israeli military says it has killed and captured hundreds of militants in a battle in Shifa. Hamas said civilians and medical personnel were rounded up.
Gaza’s health ministry said the injured and sick were being held in the human resources department, which did not have the capacity to provide them with medical care.
Residents living nearby reported hearing explosions in and around Shifa and smoke billowing from buildings inside the medical facility.
Mohammad Jamal, 25, who lives 1 kilometer from Al Shifa, said via a mobile chat app: “This is a war zone, that’s what it is in and around Al Shifa.”
“The explosions never stopped, we saw smoke coming from inside and even hundreds of meters away in the street no one moved because Israeli snipers were on the roofs of the buildings,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
