Array
The Israeli military on Saturday renewed its orders for Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and shelters as troops press on a weeklong offensive against militants.
Most of the fighting in the past week was centered in and around Jabaliya that was pounded by Israeli war jets and artillery. Residents said they have been trapped inside their homes and shelters.
In Lebanon, authorities said Friday that 60 people were killed and 168 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah to 2,229 dead and 10,380 wounded.
Israel has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border, after a year of exchanges of fire. Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hamas’ ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
It’s been a full year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Here is the latest:
CAIRO — Israeli airstrikes flattened a residential area and killed at least 22 people including women and children in an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.
In an area where Israel’s military launched a major ground operation last week, one of the strikes late Friday destroyed an entire building, killing at least 20 people and severely damaging several nearby buildings in the center of Jabaliya camp, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
A different strike killed a mother, father and injured their baby in another part of Jabaliya, medical officials said.
First responders who rushed to the area before the strikes had ceased found a 20-meter (65-foot) deep hole within a house in the area.
At least 20 bodies had been recovered from the area as of Saturday morning, with many others said to be missing under the rubble, emergency service officials said, adding that at least six women and seven children were killed.
Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday said hospitals across Gaza received the bodies of 49 people killed over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 219 wounded. The deaths brought the death tally to 42,175 since the war began on Oct. 7 last year, with 98,339 wounded, according to the ministry.
Israeli military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The strikes late Friday are part of Israel’s latest broadening offensive in northern Gaza.
The U.S. military said it conducted a series of airstrikes against multiple camps in Syria belonging to the Islamic State group.
The U.S. Central Command said the strikes on Friday will «disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organize and conduct attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, and civilians throughout the region and beyond.
