EIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed at least 16 Palestinians, including four women and seven children, and orphaned four other children, Gaza health officials said Tuesday.
Ten people were killed last night in an operation against a house near the southern city of Khan Yunis, where Israel has ordered mass evictions in recent days, saying it must act against Palestinian insurgents.
Nasser Hospital, where the bodies were taken, said four other children, including a three-month-old baby, were injured.
His parents and five other children were among the dead.
The parents of the other three injured minors also died, according to the center’s list of victims.
An AP reporter counted the bodies.
Another attack near Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the besieged Palestinian enclave, killed a woman, her four-day-old twins and their grandmother.
Another incident in central Gaza claimed the lives of a man and his nephew.
An AP reporter counted the bodies at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and spoke to the babies’ father, who planned to register their birth yesterday.
Israel says it is trying to avoid civilian deaths and blames Hamas for them because it says its fighters operate in residential areas.
Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Tuesday, a pilgrimage Palestinians view as a provocation.
Tensions over the complex have already led to episodes of violence in the past.
Ben-Gvir, an ultra-nationalist settler leader, last visited the site in July, an act that the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called a “provocative intrusion” that endangered the fragile status quo at the site.
Ben-Gvir visited what Jews call the Temple Mount – according to tradition, the site of the first and second temples – and what Muslims call the Temple Mount, the third holiest site in Islam.
Day of mourning
The visit coincided with the commemoration of Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning for the destruction of the biblical temples.
The move drew a rebuke from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it a departure from decades-old agreements banning Jewish worship on the site.
#Israeli #strikes #kill #Palestinians
2024-08-25 04:03:37
