DEIR EL-BALAHAccording to local health experts, Israeli soldiers killed at least 55 individuals in the Gaza Strip overnight and into Monday, including those who were seeking humanitarian help and a well-known journalist whom Israel said was a militant.
Hospital officials said that, excluding journalists killed in a tent just before midnight, at least 34 people were killed Monday.
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According to Fares Awad, the chief of the ambulance services in northern Gaza, over 15 individuals were killed as they were waiting for help at the Zikim border.
Questions on the killings were not immediately answered by Israel’s military. In Khan Younis, where resident Noha Abu Shamala told The Associated Press that two drone strikes killed a family of seven in their flat, it stated earlier Monday that air and artillery forces were operating in northern Gaza.
Another dozen people dead while trying to get help
According to witnesses and authorities at two hospitals, at least 12 assistance seekers were killed by Israeli gunfire while they were awaiting aid convoys or attempting to reach distribution stations.
About 30 injured persons from the Zikim region were brought to the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s Saraya Field Hospital, and more casualties are still coming in.
Five bodies and more than 70 injured were brought to Al-Shifa Hospital, according to hospital director Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya.
Children and an infant were among the casualties, relatives said AP. The gruesome picture was described as a nearly everyday occurrence by witnesses to gunshots near the Morag corridor, who reported seeing volleys of bullets and later dead bodies.
Five witnesses who were among the throng in the Morag corridor, the Teina region, and central Gaza were interviewed by the AP. Everyone said that Israeli troops had opened fire on the throngs.
According to Hussain Matter, a displaced father of two who was in the Morag corridor, “the occupation (forces) targeted us, as they do every day.” You suddenly discover gunshots everywhere.
According to Ahmed Atta, he assisted in transporting an injured man from the Teina region who was bleeding from a gunshot wound to his shoulder. According to Atta, there is a pattern to the Israeli shooting at relief workers.
According to Nasser and Awda hospitals, aid workers were murdered anywhere from three kilometers (almost two miles) to a few hundred meters (yards) away from locations run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
In May, the United Nations was supplanted as the main distributor of aid in the area by GHF, a private company supported by the United States and Israel. It said that incidents in the security zones under Israeli control that lead to its locations in central and southern Gaza were unknown to it.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the most recent deaths bring the total number of individuals killed while attempting to obtain food since the new assistance distribution system went into effect in May to over 1,700. The majority were shot on their way to distribution points, but in recent weeks, more people have been killed close to UN-delivered food convoys.
Due to serious food shortages in the blockaded area, Israeli military convoys have drawn criticism, and U.N. organizations typically do not accept Israeli military escorts for their assistance trucks due to neutrality issues.
The murders occurred just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that reports regarding the situation in Gaza were a “global campaign of lies” and that he intended to advance farther into the region in an effort to destroy Hamas. The operation won’t start right away and will take a long time to scale up, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
In the last 24 hours, five additional Palestinians, including a child, have perished in Gaza from malnutrition-related reasons, according to the health ministry.
Amid these worries, Israel boosted the supply flow two weeks ago. Despite months of complete and partial embargo, humanitarian organizations say delivery are still only a small portion of what is required, and international experts warn the region faces the worst-case scenario of famine.
Al Jazeera journalists are targeted and killed by an Israeli strike.
The Israeli military killed an Al Jazeera correspondent on Sunday after targeting him with an airstrike. Al Jazeera said that four other network journalists were also killed in what press activists called a blatant attack on war reporters. According to the network, the strike also claimed the life of a sixth journalist.
Among those slain, according to Shifa Hospital officials, were Al Jazeera correspondents Mohamed Qreiqeh and Anas al-Sharif.
The strike was attributed to the Israeli military. It happened less than a year after al-Sharif and other journalists from Al Jazeera were initially charged by Israeli army officials with belonging to the extremist organizations Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
The strike was described as a targeted assassination by Al Jazeera, and press freedom organizations condemned the growing number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza. In Gaza City, mourners buried the journalists.
Al Jazeera and al-Sharif have previously rejected the accusation as unfounded, but Israel reiterated it on Sunday that al-Sharif was the leader of a Hamas cell.
In the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that set off the war, Hamas-led militants killed almost 1,200 people, primarily civilians, and kidnapped 251 more. The majority of the captives have been freed through ceasefires or other agreements, but 50 are still inside Gaza, with Israel estimating that 20 of them are still alive.
Since then, the majority of the population has been displaced, large portions have been damaged, and the region is on the verge of hunger due to Israel’s air and land offensive. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, it has killed around 61,400 Palestinians, with about half of them being women and children. The ministry does not specify how many of these were fighters or civilians.
In addition to those slain, the ministry reported that 101 children and 121 adults had perished from malnutrition-related reasons, including five within the last 24 hours. A youngster was one of them.
The ministry employs medical experts and is a part of the Hamas-run government. It is regarded as the most trustworthy source of information on combat casualties by the United Nations and independent experts. Israel denies its numbers but hasn’t offered any of its own.
Australia takes action to acknowledge the statehood of Palestine.
Along with France, Britain, and Canada, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined his nation to a list that is working toward recognition on Monday. He claimed that the decision made by his government was intended to accelerate the two-state solution, which he described as the most effective way to put an end to the violence and bring in leadership to Gaza that is not Hamas.
According to him, the situation in Gaza has surpassed everyone’s wildest worries. The Israeli government still refuses to provide enough food, water, and help to those in need, especially children, in violation of international law.
Egypt wants to have discussions
Egypt is pushing for talks to reach an agreement that would end the war in Gaza, free Israeli detainees, ensure humanitarian passage, and eventually agree on a political roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty announced Monday.
“There is obviously no objection to the deployment of international forces to enable the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people to establish this state if there is a clear road map for doing so,” he said.
Throughout the war, there have been proposals to deploy foreign forces to assist in the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Israel has opposed the concept.
Abdelattay’s remarks during a press conference in Cairo coincided with mediators from Qatar and Egypt developing a new framework that, according to two Arab officials, would call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the end of the war in Gaza in exchange for the simultaneous release of all hostages, dead and alive. The prime minister of Qatar and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met in Spain on Saturday to talk about fresh initiatives.
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Shurafa provided updates from Cairo’s Magdy and the Gaza Strip’s Deir al-Balah. Contributions were made by Charlotte Graham-Mclay from Wellington, New Zealand, and Fatma Khaled from Cairo for the Associated Press.
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Visit https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war to follow AP’s coverage of the conflict.
