Khan Younis (Gaza Strip), Oct 19: Israeli airstrikes pounded locations across the Gaza Strip early Thursday, including parts of the south that Israel had declared as safe zones, heightening fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe.
In the nearly two weeks since a devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel, the Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in response.
Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north and head to what it called “safe zones” in the south, strikes continued across the territory overnight and Palestinian militants continued firing rockets into Israel.
A residential building in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter, was among the places hit.
Medical personnel at Nasser Hospital said they received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded.
The bombardments came after Israel agreed Wednesday to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to Gaza, the first crack in a punishing 11-day siege.
Many among Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.
The announcement of a plan to bring water, food and other supplies into Gaza came as fury over a Tuesday night explosion at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East.
There were conflicting claims of who was behind the blast, which health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said had killed hundreds of Palestinians.
Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was caused by a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed the Israeli claim.
US President Joe Biden, who visited Israel on Wednesday, said data from his Defense Department showed the explosion was not likely caused by an Israeli airstrike.
The White House later said an analysis of “overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information” showed Israel was not behind the attack. But the US continues to collect evidence.
Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza City’s main hospital, where doctors already facing critical supply shortages were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, without anesthesia.
More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate.
Most have crowded into UN-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.
A small, soot-covered child, unconscious and dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building and rushed toward a waiting ambulance.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas’ deadly incursion on October 7.
Roughly 200 others were abducted. (AP)
