‘Major massacre’: Scores killed as Israel attacks hospital, homes in Gaza

Israeli forces have stormed the last operational hospital in the besieged north Gaza after bombing it and killing children inside, according to doctors and media reports.

Medical sources announced that at least 63 Palestinians were killed in the early morning Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. “A large number of the martyrs are women and children,” they said.

The attack on the Kamal Adwan hospital, located in Beit Lahia northwest of Jabalia, was launched around 2 a.m. local time Friday, shortly after a WHO delegation left the hospital.

It began with airstrikes targeting the hospital and its courtyards, including the medical oxygen generator, said Dr. Munir al-Bursh, the director general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

The bombing led to the death of children inside the hospital and wounded medical staff.

Israeli troops then raided the hospital around two hours later, calling on all patients, including people in intensive care, to gather in the courtyard.

They detained the young men sheltering in the hospital and interrogated them. According to Al Jazeera, the troops abducted famed teenage Palestinian activist and journalist Aboud Battah from the hospital. 

Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip that have been under a suffocating Israeli siege for three weeks. They have received little to no aid, medicine, food and fuel since the blockade on the north began.

The other two, the Indonesian hospital and al-Awda hospital, have ceased operations in recent days due to the ongoing Israeli attacks. 

Kamal Adwan remained operational at minimal capacity, offering life-saving services to newborn infants in neonatal intensive care units and other patients in ICUs. 

Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, decried the situation.

"Instead of receiving aid, we receive tanks... which are shelling the [hospital] building," he said, speaking from the Intensive Care Unit where the injured and medical staff are huddled after Israel started its bombing.

"Where is the law? Which law in the world allows for a hospital to be directly targeted?"

The Israeli military launched a new onslaught on north Gaza on 5 October, described by rights groups and experts as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians. 

It began after a controversial proposal named the "Generals' Plan" was presented to the Israeli regime, which would see areas north of the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts Gaza in two, emptied of its residents so Israel could establish a "closed military zone". 

According to the plan, anyone who chooses to stay would be considered a Hamas operative and could be killed.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, estimates that about 400,000 people remain in Gaza's north, including Gaza City.

Residential houses bombed in Khan Yunis

In southern Gaza, Israeli airstrikes targeted residential homes in the al-Manara neighborhood of Khan Yunis, leading to the deaths of at least 38 Palestinians on Friday. 

The airstrikes were coupled with a ground incursion by Israeli forces, supported by heavy air and artillery cover.

Eyewitnesses described scenes of extensive destruction, with entire homes reduced to rubble in residential zones where families had taken shelter.

In the Qizan al-Najjar area of Khan Yunis, two Palestinians were killed and several others were injured when their homes were hit by artillery shells.

Three Palestinians were killed, and others wounded as Israeli artillery targeted the Maan neighborhood east of Khan Yunis.

The deaths reported by health officials were the latest in Khan Yunis, where people have in recent days lined up for bread outside the city's only bakery in operation.

The strikes come a day after the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel had accomplished its objective of “effectively dismantling” Hamas.

Homes blown up in Jabalia 

More than 150 Palestinian people were killed or injured in a “major massacre” in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza after Israeli forces blew up 11 residential houses in al-Hawaja area on Thursday evening.  

"There is talk of more than 150 martyrs and wounded," the Palestinian Civil Defense agency said.

It said the final death toll could rise as rescue efforts were disrupted due to the Israeli bombings and restrictions imposed by Israeli forces who laid siege to northern Gaza for three weeks.

"Citizens are sending distress calls to head to the place to help transport the wounded," a statement by the agendy read.

According to the statement, the targeted homes belonged to the following families: Najjar, Abu al-Ouf, Salman, Hijazi, Abu al-Qumsan, Aqel Abu Rashid, Abu al-Tarabish, Zaqoul, and Shaalan.

Israel has killed 770 Palestinians in 19 days of Jabalia siege: Gaza media office

The Jabalia refugee camp has been the focus of the Israeli operation for 19 days.

On Thursday, at least 18 people were killed in an attack on the Nuseirat Martyrs School in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Gaza’s Government Media Office noted that the school housed thousands of displaced people. The attack brings the number of displacement centers targeted by Israeli forces to 196.

Eleven children were also killed in the Israeli bombing of al-Maghazi Services Club in the neighboring Maghazi refugee camp, said the director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed nearly 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured about 100,600 others.

Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

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