Despite growing hopes on Saturday that a ceasefire agreement would be reached in the Gaza Strip, violence continues, with at least 35 people losing their lives in the past 24 hours, according to the Civil Defence in the Palestinian enclave, which has been devastated after 14 months of war.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and two other Palestinian organisations hinted on Saturday that a truce in the Gaza Strip was “closer than ever.” However, fighting and bombardments have not subsided in the coastal enclave, which within hours suffered a series of Israeli military airstrikes.
One of these strikes targeted a school building hosting displaced individuals in Gaza City (north) on Saturday night. At least eight people were killed, including four children, the Civil Defence informed Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Residents attempted yesterday morning to retrieve usable items from debris stained with blood at the Musa Bin Nusayr School.
“We were woken by a massive explosion and screams,” recounted Abu Ali al-Jamal. “We found women and children dismembered, with human remains everywhere.”
The Israeli military stated it carried out a “precision strike targeting Hamas terrorists operating” at the school “to prepare terror attacks against Israeli forces and the state of Israel.” It asserted that “multiple measures” were taken to “minimise the risk to civilians.”
According to the Civil Defence, another airstrike on a family home in Deir al-Balah (central Gaza) killed 13 people. Wrapped in blankets, two bodies lay on the ground as residents searched through the rubble for survivors.
“We’re losing family members every day,” said Naim al-Ramlawi. “I pray to God for a quick ceasefire agreement and a solution so we can live.”
The Israeli military claimed it had targeted, “based on intelligence” gathered by espionage, a “terrorist” from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another armed faction in Gaza. It also disputed the death toll of 13 reported by the Civil Defence.
Rescue workers reported three unidentified bodies in an airstrike in Rafah (south), and another four in Gaza City in a drone strike confirmed by AFP sources in Israeli security services.
By yesterday evening, the death toll had risen further, with another seven killed in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis (south), according to the Civil Defence. The Israeli military said it had targeted a “Hamas terrorist” in the area.
Pope Francis condemned the “brutality” of the bombings in Gaza for the second time in two days, despite Israeli diplomatic protests accusing him of “double standards.”
“With pain, I think of Gaza, of such brutality, of children being gunned down, of bombings of schools and hospitals,” he said during his Sunday message.
Dr Houssam Abu Safia, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of only two partially functioning hospitals in Gaza, said yesterday that generators supplying the facility were hit by Israeli strikes.
“The (Israeli) military attempted to strike the fuel tank,” which could have caused a “fire,” he alleged. When asked by AFP, an Israeli military spokesperson denied that forces had fired at the hospital.
Israel continues to strictly control all humanitarian aid shipments destined for the enclave, where the 2.4 million Palestinian residents are in dire need, with the humanitarian situation described as catastrophic since the war erupted after Hamas’s unprecedented incursion into Israeli territory on 7 October 2023.
Israel has repeatedly been accused of committing “genocide” in Gaza, especially in international courts, initiated by countries including South Africa. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—against whom an international arrest warrant has been issued—fiercely rejects these accusations.
“Of the mere 34 trucks carrying food and water permitted to enter northern Gaza in the last two and a half months, deliberate delays and systematic obstruction by the Israeli military meant only twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” the international NGO Oxfam said on Sunday, warning of the further worsening of conditions in Gaza.
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented incursion into southern Israel on 7 October 2023. During the assault, 1,208 people were killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to AFP’s tally based on official Israeli data, which includes hostages who died in captivity or were already deceased when taken to Gaza.
On that day, 251 people were abducted from Israeli territory, 96 of whom remain hostages. However, 34 of them have been declared deceased by the Israeli military.
At least 45,259 Palestinians have lost their lives in the 444 days of large-scale Israeli military operations, the majority of them civilians, according to the latest data from Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, considered credible by the UN.
Also read: Mediating countries intensify efforts for ceasefire in Gaza
