GAZA CITY: Dozens of people were killed or unaccounted for after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, a hospital director and the civil defence agency said Thursday.
One strike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the territory left “dozens of people” dead or missing, the facility’s director Hossam Abu Safiya told AFP.
The process of retrieving the bodies and wounded continues, he said, adding: “Bodies arrive at the hospital in pieces.” Another strike was reported in a neighbourhood of Gaza City.
“We can confirm that 22 martyrs were transferred (to hospital) after a strike targeted a house” in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
“There is a headless body. We don’t yet know who this is,” Moataz al-Arouqi, who lives in the area, told AFP.
Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, Israel has launched military operations in Gaza.
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Thursday that at least 44,056 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war.
The toll includes 71 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,268 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
The United States vetoed on Wednesday a UN Security Council push for a ceasefire that Washington said would have emboldened Hamas.
In September, Israel expanded the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon.
On Thursday, US envoy Amos Hochstein will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek a truce in the war in Lebanon.
Hochstein’s meetings in Lebanon this week appeared to indicate some progress in efforts to end that war.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Wednesday said that any ceasefire deal must ensure Israel still has the “freedom to act” against Hezbollah.
In a defiant speech, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem threatened to strike Israeli commercial hub Tel Aviv in retaliation for attacks on Lebanon’s capital.
“Israel cannot defeat us and cannot impose its conditions on us,” Qassem said in his televised address.
In Lebanon, Hochstein met with officials including parliament speaker Nabih Berri.
On Tuesday, Hochstein said the end of the war was “within our grasp”, and on Wednesday, he said the talks had “made additional progress”.
Since expanding its operations from Gaza to Lebanon in September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing.
More than 3,558 people in Lebanon have been killed since the clashes began, authorities have said, most since late September. Among them were more than 200 children, according to the United Nations.
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Israel has also intensified strikes on neighbouring Syria. In the latest attack, a Syria war monitor said 71 people were killed in strikes on Palmyra in the east of the country.
On Thursday, strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut following evacuation calls by the Israeli military.
Strikes also hit south Lebanon, including the border town of Khiam where Israeli troops are pushing to advance, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency.
On Wednesday, Israel said three soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon — bringing the total fallen to 52 since the start of ground operations on September 30.
A total of 82 Israeli soldiers have died since hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel began 13 months ago. – AFP
