Palestinians gather while registering for a medical checkup at a health center run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, October 29, 2024, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict. Photo courtesy: Reuters
Gaza’s civil protection agency said nearly 100 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential block on Tuesday (Oct 29, 2024), as Israel was hit by its parliament’s ban on the key UN aid agency working in the Palestinian territory. Faced criticism after voting to impose.
Palestinian rescue workers and family members search the debris of a demolished five-storey block in Beit Lahiya near the Jabaliya area, north of Gaza, where an Israeli operation is underway to eliminate what remains of Hamas fighters.
A charred body with long hair hung out of an upper-floor window and bodies wrapped in blankets stood in a line on the street below, with stunned relatives trying to identify the dead.
“The number of martyrs in the massacre at the home of the Abu Nasr family in Beit Lahiya has risen to 93 and about 40 people are still missing under the debris,” Gaza Civil Protection Agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said. AFP,
The Israeli military said it was “looking into reports” of the attack in Beit Lahiya, after previously reporting that its ground and air forces had killed 40 Hamas fighters and lost four soldiers in the battle.
‘Women and Children’
“The explosion happened at night and I first thought it was shelling, but when I went outside after sunrise I saw people taking out bodies, limbs and injured people from under the debris,” said Rabie al-Shandagli, 30. Said, who had taken shelter in a nearby school in Beit Lahiya.
“Most of the victims are women and children and people are trying to save the injured, but there are no hospitals or proper medical care,” he said. AFP,
The Israeli military has launched widespread air and ground attacks in northern Gaza since 6 October – particularly Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – in what it describes as an operation to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee the area, many of them not for the first time, after more than 12 months of fierce fighting in the densely populated area after Hamas militants launched a bloody cross-border attack on Israel in October. Last year 7.
Israeli counterattacks have killed at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers credible, triggering warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe Is.
Israel’s ban on UN aid agency
International concerns were further heightened on Tuesday (October 29, 2024) when the Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly to impose sanctions on the main UN aid agency working with Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Lawmakers also passed a measure barring Israeli officials from working with UNRWA and its staff.
Israel strictly controls all humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza, and UNRWA has provided essential aid, schooling and healthcare in the Palestinian territories and in the diaspora for more than seven decades.
published – October 29, 2024 07:45 PM IST