Fierce fighting in Khan Yunis … and Israeli bombing kills 165 in less than 24 hours
Residents reported violent attacks by Israeli planes and tanks on the town of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip last night (Friday), while the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said 165 Palestinians were killed and 250 wounded. Israeli bombing in the last 24 hours.
The total number of Palestinians killed as a result of Israeli bombardment since October 7 has risen to 21,672, while the number of wounded has reached 65,165.
Palestinian medics and journalists said Israeli planes carried out a series of airstrikes on the Nusirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, while the Israeli army launched heavy artillery fire east of the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian TV reported.
Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Jihad Movement, reported today that they are engaged in heavy clashes with Israeli soldiers on the front lines north and east of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip.
Israel's military yesterday announced a military operation in the Khirbet Gusa area, east of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. Army spokesman Avichai Atrey said military forces at Base “X” are “working to gain operational control over the area.” This is NIR. Want was the starting point for attacks on the city.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said today that 30 Palestinian fighters were killed in a single day in the Gaza Strip. Hagari added that the militants were killed in Gaza City and surrounding areas by targeting several military buildings and infrastructure from the air and ground.
He went on to say that the Israeli army tracked down the armed cells and launched an attack on the terrorists and killed them. The army also destroyed two military buildings used by the Hamas movement.
Further incursions are expected in the key southern city, which Israeli forces took control of in early December after shelling Khan Younis.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said the forces reached Hamas headquarters and weapons depots. The Israeli military also said it destroyed a tunnel complex in the basement of one of Hamas leader Yahya Shinwar's homes in Gaza City.
Israeli forces have reduced large parts of the Gaza Strip to rubble, 12 weeks after Hamas militants attacked towns in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, according to Israel. Their war goal is to eliminate the militants.
Almost all of the 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes at least once, and many are now moving for a third or fourth time, often sheltering in makeshift tents or huddling in the open under tarpaulins and plastic.
Health officials in Gaza have reported that at least 187 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 21,507. That's about one percent of the Strip's population, and thousands of bodies are still feared buried beneath the rubble of the devastated neighborhoods.
Palestinian journalist killed
A Palestinian journalist working for the al-Quds satellite channel was killed along with several members of his family in an Israeli airstrike at their home in Nusirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, health officials and journalists said.
With this, the number of Palestinian journalists killed in the Israeli attack has risen to 106, according to the government media office in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said last week that the first ten weeks of the war between Israel and Gaza had been bloody for journalists; The highest number of journalists killed in a single year in one place.
Most of the journalists and media workers killed in the war are Palestinians. The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it was “particularly concerned about the clear pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military”.
Earlier this month, a Reuters investigation revealed that Israeli tank crews killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdullah and wounded six other journalists in Lebanon. When it fired two shells into Lebanon in quick succession from Israel, journalists were filming the bombardment across the country. border
Israel has previously said it has not and will not deliberately target journalists and is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, but the high death toll has raised concerns even among its staunchest allies.
The US has called for a de-escalation of all-out war in the coming weeks and a shift to targeted operations against Hamas leaders. So far, Israel has shown no signs of doing so.
South Africa yesterday asked the International Court of Justice to issue an emergency order declaring Israel to be in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention in its ongoing campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
South Africa asked the court to issue temporary or short-term measures to stop Israel from its military campaign in Gaza, which it said was “necessary in this case to protect the rights of the Palestinian people from further serious and irreversible damage”.
No date has been set for the hearing.
In response, the Israeli Foreign Ministry blamed Hamas for using Palestinians in Gaza as human shields and seizing humanitarian aid allocated to them. Hamas has denied the allegations.
Israel helps deliver vaccines to Gaza
Israel announced yesterday (Friday) that it has facilitated the entry of enough vaccines to inoculate about 1.4 million people against diseases including polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and meningitis.
In a statement released by the Israeli Government Coordination Unit in the Territories, a unit affiliated with the Defense Ministry that coordinates with the Palestinians, the vaccine exchange process was coordinated with UNICEF to prevent the spread of the disease.
The Gaza Strip is completely dependent on food, fuel and medical supplies from abroad, and Israel closes all access to it except in the south. International organizations say the goods allowed to enter through Israeli inspections are only a small fraction of the Strip's enormous needs.
Last week, Israel bowed to international pressure to open a second crossing, which it said would double the number of supply trucks to 200 a day, but the United Nations said on Thursday that only 76 trucks had been able to enter, down from 500 in peacetime. .
An Israeli government spokesman said yesterday that the government does not impose restrictions on humanitarian aid and that there is a problem with its distribution inside Gaza.
