More than 30 Palestinians have died in overnight Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Footage from Gaza's Civil Defense department showed rescue workers searching through the twisted rubble of a building in Gaza City by flashlight after the airstrike before dawn.The attack on the home in the Daraj neighborhood killed at least 20 people, according to Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal.Another strike late on Friday near the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border killed at least 13 people, including two children.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the dead were among 135 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall toll of the war to 23,843.
The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry has said about two-thirds of the dead are women and children. The ministry said the total number of war-wounded surpassed 60,000.Israel has argued Hamas is responsible for the high civilian casualties, saying its fighters make use of civilian buildings and launch attacks from densely populated urban areas.
A video released by the Israeli video was said to show the destruction of two rocket launching compounds in central Gaza. With the war in Gaza entering its 100th day on Sunday, the World Health Organization said only 15 of the territories' 36 hospitals are still partially functional.
The main hospital in central Gaza, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah, went dark Friday morning after running out of fuel.Staff were able to keep ventilators and incubators operating with solar-charged batteries during the day, and received a small emergency shipment of fuel from another hospital late Friday.Fuel was expected to run out again on Saturday unless the WHO is able to deliver a promised shipment, hospital officials said.
Aid deliveries were being disrupted by a renewed drop in telecommunications connectivity in much of Gaza, which began late Friday.In its October 7 attack, Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians.
About 250 more were taken hostage, and while some have been released or confirmed dead, more than half are believed to still be in captivity.Since the start of Israel's ground operation in late October, 186 Israeli soldiers were killed and another 1,099 injured in Gaza, according to the military. More than 85% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million has been displaced as a result of Israel's air and ground offensive, and vast swaths of the territory have been leveled.Amid already severe shortages of food, clean water and fuel in Gaza, OCHA said in its daily report that Israel's severe constraints on humanitarian missions and outright denials had increased since the start of the year.The agency said only 21% of planned deliveries of food, medicine, water and other supplies have been successfully reaching northern Gaza.
Fears of a wider conflagration have been palpable since the start of the war and new fronts include Iran-backed groups — Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria — carrying out attacks.
Following a Houthi campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the U.S. and Britain launched multiple airstrikes against the rebels Friday, and the U.S. hit another site Saturday.In another fallout from the war, the International Court of Justice heard allegations by South Africa this week that Israel committed genocide against the Palestinians. The complaint cited the soaring death toll and hardships among Gaza civilians, along with inflammatory comments from Israeli leaders cited as proof of what South Africa said was genocidal intent.Israel's defense argued they had the right to fight back against an enemy bent on its destruction, that South Africa had barely mentioned Hamas and that it ignored what Israel considers attempts to mitigate civilian harm.
