Jerusalem: Israeli strikes killed at least 30 people overnight in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials. Strikes early Tuesday killed 10 people in the Gaza Strip, including four children and two women, and a strike late Monday on the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed at least 20 people, including eight women and six children.
Israel has been waging a massive offensive in northern Gaza — which was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory — for nearly a month.
Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s border areas. Israel is also fighting a seemingly endless war against Hamas in northern Gaza.
Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of a nearby hospital that received the casualties, said the strike late Monday hit a home in the town of Beit Lahiya where multiple families were sheltering.
The dead included eight women and six children, according to a list provided by the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel has been waging a massive offensive in northern Gaza — which was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory — for nearly a month. It ordered the complete evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the nearby town of Beit Hanoun, and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, and has allowed almost no humanitarian aid into the area for over a month.
Tens of thousands of people have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement in the war, which began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israeli forces kill 3 people in the occupied West Bank
Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have killed three people in the occupied West Bank.
Two were killed in an airstrike early Tuesday near the northern city of Jenin, a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. A third person was shot in the village of Tamoun, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said it called in an airstrike on a militant cell near Jenin. There was no immediate comment on the shooting.
Israeli forces have carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank since Hamas’ October 7 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the Israel-Hamas war. The Health Ministry says at least 767 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then. Most appear to have been militants killed in battles with Israeli forces, but the dead also include civilian bystanders and people killed during protests.
Israel says the raids are aimed at dismantling Hamas in the West Bank and preventing attacks. Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis since the start of the war.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. (AP)
