ISRAELI airstrikes killed more than 100 people in Gaza on Christmas Eve as the region faces some of the deadliest fighting in the conflict to date.
An airstrike on a residential block in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza on Sunday killed at least 70 people, The Guardian reports, with 12 of these women and children, according to hospital figures.
The Palestinian health ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, said the death toll was likely to climb. “What is happening at the Maghazi camp is a massacre that is being committed on a crowded residential square,” he told Reuters.
The nearby city of Deir al-Balah was also hit overnight despite previously being identified by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) as an “evacuation zone” for Palestinians fleeing the fighting.
On Tuesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent posted on Twitter/X saying their headquarters in Khan Younis were being attacked by “artillery shelling” and that internally displaced people sheltering there had been injured.
Bethlehem’s Christmas celebrations were cancelled as a result of the ongoing conflict, which has so far seen more than 20,400 Palestinians and 1140 Israelis killed since the outbreak of war after Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7.
The city, believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, did not put up its usual Christmas tree.
A silent parade of the bishops and patriarchs of Jerusalem took place before a midnight mass at the Catholic church of St Catherine. The Guardian’s correspondent in Palestine described the atmosphere as “hushed and sad”.
The latest casualties came after an earlier announcement on Sunday from the Gaza health ministry that Israeli airstrikes had killed 166 Palestinians in 24 hours, one of the single deadliest days of the 12-week-old conflict.
“This day is supposed to be a day of love and happiness but look around you, there are no smiles on people’s faces. Bethlehem is sad and dark. There are no decorations, no carols or a Christmas tree,” said the Reverend Louis Salman.
“I blame the decision-makers who watch what is happening to the children of Gaza and do nothing.”
