JERUSALEM/GAZA – At least 50 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip in Israeli attacks over the past day and 54 others wounded in the past 24 hours, according to the latest data from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.
The nine-month war has killed 38,345 Palestinians in the Strip, including more than 16,000 children, and wounded 88,295 others, in addition to 10,000 bodies estimated to be missing under the rubble, according to the same source.
The ministry’s tally includes deaths confirmed by hospitals as of midnight Thursday, but not those who died in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Since dawn, 30 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday in Gaza City, which the Israeli army ordered evacuated yesterday to launch another military assault on the Strip’s main city, which it had already ordered evacuated at the start of the war.
The spokesman for the Civil Defense in the Strip, Mahmoud Basal, confirmed to EFE that more than 30 bodies were found in the streets of the Al-Rimal, Al-Sina’a and Al-Kataba neighborhoods in Gaza City.
Basal also pointed out the difficulty of retrieving the bodies, as the organization only has 250 liters of fuel, while they need between 20 and 25 for each rescue mission.
He explained that his teams also tried to treat an injured woman in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, but she was attacked by Israeli snipers and had to leave.
Israel continues its offensive throughout the Gaza Strip, particularly concentrated in Gaza City and Rafah, at the southern end of the enclave, where its forces entered in May.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari admitted in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 News that eradicating Hamas from the Gaza Strip is an impossible mission, and that the Islamists will remain there if an alternative government is not found. Randy Serrano with the report.
In a joint air and ground assault, the Israeli military said it had “eliminated the terrorists” who had been involved in firing five rockets from Rafah into neighboring communities in southern Israel on Thursday morning, which were intercepted.
Palestinian medical sources reported that seven people were killed, Thursday morning, in several explosions in the western area of Rafah city, including a minor.
Israel on Wednesday ended its operation in the Shujaiya neighborhood, a peripheral neighborhood southeast of Gaza City, on the same day it ordered the evacuation of the entire city, including its center, where its forces have also returned in recent days to fight Hamas forces that have managed to rebuild themselves in areas the military deemed under its control.
Gaza residents have been asked to move to the “safe zone” in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, but humanitarian organizations have reported that there is nowhere safe to go.
Nine out of ten people have been displaced at least once in the Strip since the war began, while the majority have been forced to move from one place to another on several occasions, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
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