At least 39 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.
Israel’s military has accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there. Hamas denies the charge.
In the central Gaza strip, an Israeli air strike on two houses in the Nuseirat camp killed at least nine Palestinians, medics told Reuters.
Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled Hamas’s command structure, is currently the main focus of the military’s assault in the enclave. Earlier this month it sent tanks into Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya to flush out militants it said had regrouped in the area.
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Eid Sabbah, director of nursing at Kamal Adwan – which is in Beit Lahiya – said some staff had suffered minor burns after the Israeli strike hit the third floor of the hospital.
[ Rocket strikes Irish Unifil headquarters in LebanonOpens in new window ]
There were no reports of any casualties at the hospital, which Israeli forces stormed and briefly occupied last week. Israel said it had captured about 100 suspected Hamas militants in that raid. Israeli tanks were still stationed nearby on Thursday.
The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the [Israeli] occupation”.
The Israeli military has said its forces are operating in the hospital area based on intelligence about the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the vicinity.
“During the operation, it was found that dozens of terrorists were hiding in the hospital, with some even posing as hospital staff,” said the military in a statement following Thursday’s strike.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said on Thursday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained last Saturday by Israeli forces. It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who “are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care”.
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7th last year, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities say.
Elsewhere, Israeli strikes on the West Bank’s Nur Shams refugee camp on Thursday killed two Palestinians including a child, the Palestinian health ministry reported.
One Palestinian was shot and killed by the Israeli army overnight in West Bank’s refugee camp of Tulkarm, the health ministry added.
The Israeli army said on Thursday it was conducting an operation targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in Nur Shams.
Official Palestinian news agency Wafa said a large number of Israeli vehicles and heavy bulldozers stormed the city and headed towards the Nur Shams refugee camp.
Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, said in a statement they detonated a highly explosive bomb in a military bulldozer to thwart the Israeli army’s raid.
In Lebanon, a Hizbullah attack on northern Israel’s Metula killed five people including an Israeli farmer and four foreign workers, Israel’s Channel 12 said on Thursday, while Beirut said Israeli strikes had killed six health workers in southern Lebanon.
US envoys and Israeli officials were due to meet in Israel later to discuss efforts towards a ceasefire in both Lebanon, where Israeli forces are battling Iran-backed Hizbullah, and in Gaza, where they are fighting Hamas Palestinian militants.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister accused Israel of perpetrating a form of “genocide” with its grinding assault on northern Gaza – a charge it denies – and called on Lebanon to solve its long-running political crisis.
Israel pushed forward on Thursday with its operations in Lebanon, issuing an evacuation notice to residents of the eastern city of Baalbek for a second consecutive day. On Wednesday it conducted heavy air strikes targeting Hizbullah in and around the city, which is famed for its Roman temples.
The total number of health workers killed by Israel since October 2023 rose to 178 and 279 wounded, the ministry added.
In a another development, an Irish peacekeeping base in south Lebanon was struck by a rocket.
No one was injured in the incident which occurred on Wednesday afternoon at Camp Shamrock, the Irish headquarters for Ireland’s Unifil contingent in the country. – Reuters
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