Israel's latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people
The latest Israeli strikes have killed at least 38 people in Gaza, including a mother and her two children sheltering in a tent, local health officials say with no data available for a second straight day from now-inaccessible hospitals in the north.
Further details also emerged of the local doctor who lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli strike on Friday.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 3785 people have been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire and renewed its offensive in March, vowing to destroy Hamas and return the 58 hostages it still holds from the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.
Israel also blocked the import of all food, medicine and fuel for two and a half months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts' warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel's top allies.
Israel has been pursuing a new plan to tightly control all aid to Gaza, which the United Nations has rejected.
Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of much of its population of over two million Palestinians, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
Experts say it would likely violate international law.
The new strike on the tent housing displaced people that killed the mother and children occurred in the central city of Deir al-Balah, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
A strike in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza killed at least five, including two women and a child, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Only one of paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar's 10 children survived the Israeli strike on their home Friday near the southern city of Khan Younis.
Both the 11-year-old and al-Najjar's husband, also a doctor, were badly hurt.
The charred remains of the other children were brought to the morgue in a single body bag, said a fellow paediatrician at Nasser Hospital, Alaa al-Zayan.
The home was struck minutes after Hamdi al-Najjar had driven his wife to the hospital.
His brother Ismail al-Najjar, was the first to arrive at the scene.
"They were innocent children," the brother said, with the youngest seven months old.
Israel on Saturday said: "the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review."
It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because it operates in densely populated areas.
There was no immediate comment from the military on the latest strikes.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 people.
Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's 19-month offensive has killed over 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead.
It does not provide figures for the number of civilians or combatants killed.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of the territory's population, often multiple times.
The latest Israeli strikes have killed at least 38 people in Gaza, including a mother and her two children sheltering in a tent, local health officials say with no data available for a second straight day from now-inaccessible hospitals in the north.
Further details also emerged of the local doctor who lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli strike on Friday.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 3785 people have been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire and renewed its offensive in March, vowing to destroy Hamas and return the 58 hostages it still holds from the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.
Israel also blocked the import of all food, medicine and fuel for two and a half months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts' warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel's top allies.
Israel has been pursuing a new plan to tightly control all aid to Gaza, which the United Nations has rejected.
Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of much of its population of over two million Palestinians, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
Experts say it would likely violate international law.
The new strike on the tent housing displaced people that killed the mother and children occurred in the central city of Deir al-Balah, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
A strike in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza killed at least five, including two women and a child, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Only one of paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar's 10 children survived the Israeli strike on their home Friday near the southern city of Khan Younis.
Both the 11-year-old and al-Najjar's husband, also a doctor, were badly hurt.
The charred remains of the other children were brought to the morgue in a single body bag, said a fellow paediatrician at Nasser Hospital, Alaa al-Zayan.
The home was struck minutes after Hamdi al-Najjar had driven his wife to the hospital.
His brother Ismail al-Najjar, was the first to arrive at the scene.
"They were innocent children," the brother said, with the youngest seven months old.
Israel on Saturday said: "the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review."
It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because it operates in densely populated areas.
There was no immediate comment from the military on the latest strikes.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 people.
Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's 19-month offensive has killed over 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead.
It does not provide figures for the number of civilians or combatants killed.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of the territory's population, often multiple times.
The latest Israeli strikes have killed at least 38 people in Gaza, including a mother and her two children sheltering in a tent, local health officials say with no data available for a second straight day from now-inaccessible hospitals in the north.
Further details also emerged of the local doctor who lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli strike on Friday.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 3785 people have been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire and renewed its offensive in March, vowing to destroy Hamas and return the 58 hostages it still holds from the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.
Israel also blocked the import of all food, medicine and fuel for two and a half months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts' warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel's top allies.
Israel has been pursuing a new plan to tightly control all aid to Gaza, which the United Nations has rejected.
Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of much of its population of over two million Palestinians, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
Experts say it would likely violate international law.
The new strike on the tent housing displaced people that killed the mother and children occurred in the central city of Deir al-Balah, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
A strike in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza killed at least five, including two women and a child, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Only one of paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar's 10 children survived the Israeli strike on their home Friday near the southern city of Khan Younis.
Both the 11-year-old and al-Najjar's husband, also a doctor, were badly hurt.
The charred remains of the other children were brought to the morgue in a single body bag, said a fellow paediatrician at Nasser Hospital, Alaa al-Zayan.
The home was struck minutes after Hamdi al-Najjar had driven his wife to the hospital.
His brother Ismail al-Najjar, was the first to arrive at the scene.
"They were innocent children," the brother said, with the youngest seven months old.
Israel on Saturday said: "the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review."
It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because it operates in densely populated areas.
There was no immediate comment from the military on the latest strikes.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 people.
Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's 19-month offensive has killed over 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead.
It does not provide figures for the number of civilians or combatants killed.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of the territory's population, often multiple times.
The latest Israeli strikes have killed at least 38 people in Gaza, including a mother and her two children sheltering in a tent, local health officials say with no data available for a second straight day from now-inaccessible hospitals in the north.
Further details also emerged of the local doctor who lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli strike on Friday.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 3785 people have been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire and renewed its offensive in March, vowing to destroy Hamas and return the 58 hostages it still holds from the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.
Israel also blocked the import of all food, medicine and fuel for two and a half months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts' warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel's top allies.
Israel has been pursuing a new plan to tightly control all aid to Gaza, which the United Nations has rejected.
Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of much of its population of over two million Palestinians, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
Experts say it would likely violate international law.
The new strike on the tent housing displaced people that killed the mother and children occurred in the central city of Deir al-Balah, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
A strike in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza killed at least five, including two women and a child, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Only one of paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar's 10 children survived the Israeli strike on their home Friday near the southern city of Khan Younis.
Both the 11-year-old and al-Najjar's husband, also a doctor, were badly hurt.
The charred remains of the other children were brought to the morgue in a single body bag, said a fellow paediatrician at Nasser Hospital, Alaa al-Zayan.
The home was struck minutes after Hamdi al-Najjar had driven his wife to the hospital.
His brother Ismail al-Najjar, was the first to arrive at the scene.
"They were innocent children," the brother said, with the youngest seven months old.
Israel on Saturday said: "the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review."
It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because it operates in densely populated areas.
There was no immediate comment from the military on the latest strikes.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 people.
Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's 19-month offensive has killed over 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead.
It does not provide figures for the number of civilians or combatants killed.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of the territory's population, often multiple times.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News AU
15 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Letters to government calling for ceasefire in Gaza achieve ‘next to nothing'
Executive Council of Australian Jewry Co-CEO Alex Ryvchin claims any letters written in an attempt for intervention by groups and individuals for the war in Gaza to end are not "worth the paper they're written on". The Australian Medical Association wrote to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about the war in Gaza, urging the government to call for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire. 'We're all sick and tired of individuals and groups with no skin in the game, with no ability to actually impact events on the ground, taking these sorts of moral positions and trying to tell the people of Israel how they should fight this war and rescue their people,' Mr Ryvhcin told Sky News Senior Reporter Caroline Marcus. 'For all the pontificating that's been going on, and letters and petitions ... at the end of the day, the only thing that's going to rescue the hostages is Israeli minds and sacrifice. 'These doctors and these petitions aren't going to achieve anything. 'If they want to do something productive and constructive, let them stand with people of goodwill and call for an immediate end to the conflict through the defeat of Hamas.'
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘A place of killing': The US aid agency sowing chaos in Gaza
The aerial photographs show five narrow lanes made of high metal fences wedged between two artificial mounds of earth and topped with barbed wire. Inside, hundreds of people are crammed under the baking sun. The sight of ordinary Gazans corralled into cages is not the image Israel's reputation managers were after. But, just over a week into its controversial new aid delivery scheme to bypass Hamas using a US contractor, that is what they are faced with. That, and viral videos of civilians running for their lives to the sound of gunfire, amid accusations – bitterly denied by Israel – that more than 20 were shot dead by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Sunday as order disintegrated at a distribution centre in the south of the Strip. One man who spoke to The London Telegraph said he found the centre 'terrifying' and 'like a prison', but that he was forced there – kilometres from his temporary home – out of fear that his children would starve. Another called it 'a place of killing'. Fuelling the international criticism is the nature of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the American company created to deliver the new system, with persistent suggestions of CIA involvement, opaque funding and concealed Israeli control. This has been enhanced by condemnation from the UN and other large aid NGOs, which want nothing to do with the GHF and accuse it of politicising aid. After Sunday's alleged shooting, and new claims of gunfire killing more than 20 people overnight, the project's credibility is on a knife-edge. Loading From Israel's point of view, the new system makes perfect sense. The government argues that under the previous model, which it cut off entirely at the beginning of March, Hamas robbed the aid trucks blind – the UN denies this – then sold the food, fuel and medical supplies back to civilians, thus cementing their control over the population and financing their terror infrastructure. By contrast, the new arrangement requires people to travel to four purpose-built distribution centres in the south of the Strip where – it was promised – they would be screened to make sure they are deserving civilians and not terrorists. The idea, in principle, is that while the IDF provides a wider blanket of security, Gazans themselves do not interact with Israeli soldiers, but deal directly with the foundation staff and associated security contractors. Some reports suggest these contractors are paid more than $US1000 a day. 'Places of killing' The UN and legacy NGOs, which used to deliver aid into communities through more than a hundred drop-off points, say this offends basic humanitarian principles, trapping people between starvation and a long and dangerous journey. Omar Baraka, 40, from Khan Younis, said: 'We go to dangerous red zones, the army asks us to walk for several kilometres. 'There is no order in the place, it's very chaotic. 'Tens of thousands of citizens go there. The organisation delivered aid in the first two days, then the centres became places of killing.' Salem Al-Ahmad, an 18-year-old high school student, has ventured to the GHF site on several occasions to try to pick up flour for his family. 'The situation required getting food and saving yourself from death,' he said. 'Anyone who gets aid has to run back quickly, about three kilometres, because the army starts shooting to empty the area of civilians. 'I found a lot of food lying on the ground because it is difficult to carry and run with it. I only had 1kg bags of flour so I could run from the gunfire.' Israeli government officials and their supporters in the press argue that, despite the chaotic scenes, the early days of the new scheme represents a triumph. This is because it shows Gaza's civilian population has passed through the 'fear barrier' – in other words, it shows they are now prepared to defy the terror group's commands not to engage with the GHF. There is certainly evidence that Hamas has tried to put obstacles – some physical, others in the form of propaganda – between the Gazan civilians and the new aid system. It is far less certain to what extent the group has been behind the scenes of chaos at the new distribution centres themselves. Critics say that the scenes of disorder are simply a function of a desperate, starving population and inexperienced aid distributors. Aside from gunfire, flashbangs and smoke grenades have been thrown. Meanwhile, multiple people say that no serious attempt at screening is made. On Monday night, UN human rights chief Volker Turk told the BBC the way humanitarian aid is now being delivered is 'unacceptable' and 'dehumanising'. 'I think what it shows is utter disregard for civilians. Can you imagine people that have been absolutely desperate for food, for medicine, for almost three months and then they have to run for it or try to get it in the most desperate circumstances? Mr Turk told the BBC World Service's Newshour program. Aside from the practical difficulties the new system imposes, it has been accused of serving Benjamin Netanyahu's agenda by forcing the population into the largely levelled south of the Strip, leaving the IDF clear to execute Operation Gideon's Chariot, which, sources have said, will see a similarly widespread demolition of property. Loading Some have even questioned whether the GHF model is a crucial component of an attempt to realise Donald Trump's 'riviera' vision for Gaza, which would see the population displaced ahead of a comprehensive redevelopment. While the president himself now appears lukewarm about the scheme, there are some in Israel's government – notably Defence Minister Israel Katz – who allude to it often. Aside from its performance on the ground, the origins and make-up of the GHF and its partner organisation, Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), continue to provoke comment. The latter is headed by Philip Reilly, a CIA veteran, who is said to have played a role in training the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and was then the first agency officer into Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, where he went on to be station chief. SRS previously had the contract to police traffic and people along a main north-south road in Gaza during the January-March ceasefire. A recent investigation by The New York Times suggests that an informal network of powerful individuals in both the IDF and the prime minister's office, known as the Mikveh Yisrael Foru, had been aiming towards a parallel aid system that cut out the NGOs since December 2023. It claimed that the group had identified Reilly as its candidate to lead such a mission as early as January last year, and that the January contract was a key step in convincing Netanyahu to hire him for the aid distribution job. The GHF is a separately registered company, although it was registered by the same lawyer and previously had the same spokesman. A $US100 million donation to the GHF got tongues wagging in Israel that this was really the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency – indeed, the former defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said as much. The GHF denies this, saying the donation was from a Western European country, but declined to name which one. 'Tired from malnutrition' Jake Wood, a former US Marine, quit as chief executive of the foundation the day before aid distribution operations began, claiming it violated 'humanitarian principles'. He had previously said: 'I would participate in no plan in any capacity if it was an extension of an IDF plan or an Israeli government plan to forcibly dislocate people anywhere within Gaza.' Back in Rafah, Ahmed Musa, a 34-year-old from Khan Younis, spoke of despair at Sunday's events. 'I left at dawn to go to the American aid centre in the Mawasi area of Rafah,' he said. 'I went there under duress, as I have four hungry children who are tired from malnutrition. 'The scene was terrifying,' he added. 'I sat and cried bitterly over my helplessness that I did not receive anything. But I will try again.'
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Gaza aid sites closed as Israel declares ‘combat zones'
Gaza aid distribution centres will be closed for the day on Wednesday, and the Israeli military warned that roads leading to them have been designated as 'combat zones'. The move comes after Palestinian health officials and witnesses said Israeli forces fired on people heading towards an aid distribution site on Tuesday, killing at least 27 people, in the third such incident in three days. The Israeli army said it fired 'near a few individual suspects' who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots, and said it was looking into reports of casualties. It has previously denied firing on civilians or blocking them from reaching the aid sites. The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said its distribution centres would be closed for a day for 'update, organisation, and efficiency improvement work'. 'Please do not go to the site and follow general instructions. Operations will resume on Thursday', the group said in a post on Facebook. The GHF has also announced its new executive chairman as an American evangelical Christian leader who previously backed US President Donald Trump's proposal for the US to take over Gaza. Reverend Dr Johnnie Moore, an evangelical adviser to Trump during his first term, replaces former GHF chief Jake Wood, who resigned last week saying the organisation could not fulfil the principles of 'humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence'. In a statement posted on X, Moore said the group 'believes that serving the people of Gaza with dignity and compassion must be the top priority'. 'The old way of doing things just won't get it done,' he said.
