Worries mount for desperate civilians as Israel expands its operations in the southern half of territory
Fierce fighting across the besieged Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours has killed 166 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers, in one of the single deadliest days of the new conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas to date.
Heavy bombing and shelling of Jabaliya, in the north of the Palestinian territory, overnight continued into Sunday morning, residents of the area said, while in Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have begun a ground operation in the central neighbourhood of Tufah. In the southern half of the strip, aerial and ground attacks continue in the territory’s second city, Khan Younis.
At least 166 people had been killed since Saturday, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, bringing the total number of dead to 20,424, although thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble. The ministry does not distinguish between civilian and militant deaths, but about 70% of those killed are believed to be women and children.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported an attack on one of its main bases in Khan Younis and said a 13-year-old child had been shot dead by an Israeli drone while inside the city’s al-Amal hospital. Another six people were killed in a strike on a house in the central Bureij refugee camp, two in a strike in Rafah, the strip’s southernmost town, on the border with Egypt, the agency said.
On Sunday morning the IDF announced the names of eight soldiers who were killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, on top of another five announced killed in action on Saturday night, bringing the total to 154 combat losses since Israel declared war in response to Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel in which militants killed 1,140 people and seized another 240 as hostages. At least some of the weekend’s Israeli casualties were killed in friendly fire incidents, two Israeli newspapers reported on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, an Israeli military spokesperson said its forces had killed 8,000 Palestinian fighters, saying that the figure was drawn from accounts of targeted strikes, battlefield tallies and interrogations of captives. Hamas has never said how many of its members have been killed.
The mounting death tolls come despite Israeli claims that after 12 weeks of conflict it has achieved almost complete operational control over northern Gaza, and growing worries for desperate civilians in the south as Israel expands its operations into that half of the territory.
