Israeli strikes kills 10 in Gaza following announcement of new 'operation'
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Gaza rescuers said Israeli strikes killed 10 people on Saturday, after the Israeli military announced the early stages of an intensified operation aimed at defeating Hamas.
The stepped-up campaign came as the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory continued to worsen, with one of its last functioning hospitals warning it was no longer able to treat seriously wounded patients due to shortages of supplies and a nearby attack that damaged the premises.
Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP 10 bodies had been brought to Gaza hospitals after strikes on Saturday morning.
Three people were killed and four wounded in drone strikes east of the southern city of Khan Yunis, he said, while three others were killed and several wounded in the bombing of a house in Jabalia, in the north.
An attack on an apartment northwest of Khan Yunis killed three people, he added, while one person was killed and five wounded, "including a girl, a young woman and a pregnant woman", in a strike on a tent west of the same city.
The reports of deaths came after the Israeli army announced it had "launched extensive strikes and transferred forces to seize control of areas within the Gaza Strip."
The moves were part of the "the expansion of the battle in the Gaza Strip, with the goal of achieving all the war's objectives, including the release of the abducted and the defeat of Hamas", the military said.
The operation was launched as Israel faces pressure to lift a sweeping aid blockade it imposed on Gaza in early March as negotiations faltered over next steps in a ceasefire that collapsed weeks later.
Aid organisations have warned that the blockade has created critical shortages of everything from food and clean water to fuel and medicines.
Marwan Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, said the situation there was "tragic and catastrophic after its surroundings were targeted again this morning, causing the collapse of ceilings and cracks in the walls".
"The operating rooms and intensive care units are completely full and we are unable to receive any more critical cases," he said.
He added there was "a severe shortage of blood units, medicines, medical and therapeutic supplies, and surgical procedures."
Sultan said doctors had been forced to source blood for transfusions from other patients and even from themselves "due to the impossibility of donations from citizens due to malnutrition."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Hindustan Times
At least 16 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, say health officials
Sixteen Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military in Gaza on Friday, according to local health authorities, as a US- and Israeli-backed group said it had handed out aid in the enclave after earlier saying that its distribution sites were closed. The military had no immediate comment on the reports of deaths in war-shattered Gaza. Health authorities said strikes had killed people in Gaza's Jabalia, Tuffah and Khan Younis areas. Witnesses and medics told Reuters that Israeli planes and tanks had intensified strikes on Jabalia and nearby Beit Hanoun since the early hours. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders to residents of certain blocks in northern Gaza on Friday, spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on X. The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) told Reuters by email it had delivered aid on Friday, despite earlier announcing on its official Facebook page that its distribution sites were closed until further notice and that people should stay away from the sites "for their safety" after a series of deadly shootings. The GHF opened two sites in southern Gaza on Thursday after closing all of its centres the previous day in the wake of shootings in the vicinity of its operations. It has so far operated four distribution centres. The organisation bypasses traditional relief agencies and has been criticised by humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations, for alleged lack of neutrality, which it denies. Palestinians collecting aid from GHF sites told Reuters that there was no clear distribution system, describing the process as disorganised and chaotic. Footage released this week by the organisation has shown similar scenes at one of its sites. GHF halted distributions on Wednesday and said it was pressing Israeli forces to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations after dozens of Palestinians were shot dead near the Rafah site over three consecutive days. The Israeli military said on Sunday and Monday that its soldiers had fired warning shots. On Tuesday, it said, forces also fired warning shots before firing towards Palestinians that it said were advancing towards troops. GHF has said that aid was safely handed out from its sites without any incident. Military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X on Friday that Palestinians would have 'free movement' to aid distribution sites between 06:00 and 18:00, but warned that outside those hours the area would be a 'closed military zone' and movement would pose a significant risk to life. Israel has re-intensified an offensive against Gaza's dominant Hamas militant group since breaking a two-month-old ceasefire in March in a war triggered by Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
The Hindu
a day ago
- The Hindu
New hope for patients with less common breast cancer
Results from the study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology, are expected to be submitted to regulators and could soon establish a new first-line therapy for people with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer -- the advanced stage of a form that comprises 15-20 percent of all breast cancer cases. HER2-positive cancers are fueled by an overactive HER2 gene, which makes too much of a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 that helps cancer cells grow and spread. Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body live around five years. "Seeing such a striking improvement was really impressive to us -- we were taking a standard and almost doubling how long patients could have their cancer controlled for," oncologist Sara Tolaney, chief of the breast oncology division at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told AFP. The current standard of care, known as THP, combines chemotherapy with two antibodies that block growth signals from the HER2 protein. The new approach uses a drug called trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd), an antibody attached to a chemotherapy drug. Smart bomb This "smart bomb" strategy allows the drug to target cancer cells directly. "You can bind to the cancer cell and dump all that chemo right into the cancer cells," explained Tolaney. "Some people call them smart bombs because they're delivering chemo in a targeted fashion -- which is how I think we're able to really increase efficacy so much." Common side effects included nausea, diarrhea and a low white blood cell count, with a less common effect involving lung scarring. T-DXd is already approved as a "second-line" option -- used when first-line treatments stop working. But in the new trial, it was given earlier, paired with another antibody, pertuzumab. In a global trial led by Tolaney, just under 400 patients were randomly assigned to receive T-DXd in combination with pertuzumab, thought to enhance its effects. A similar number received the standard THP regimen. A third group, who received T-DXd without pertuzumab, was also enrolled -- but those results haven't yet been reported. 44 percent risk reduction At a follow-up of 2.5 years, the T-DXd and pertuzumab combination reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 44 percent compared to standard care. Fifteen percent of patients in the T-DXd group saw their cancer disappear entirely, compared to 8.5 percent in the THP group. Because this was an interim analysis, the median progression-free survival -- meaning the point at which half the patients had seen their cancer return or worsen -- was 40.7 months with the new treatment, compared to 26.9 months with the standard, and could rise further as more data come in. Tolaney said the results would be submitted to regulators around the world, including the US Food and Drug Administration, and that future work would focus on optimising how long patients remain on the treatment, particularly those showing complete remission. "This represents a new first-line standard treatment option for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer," said Rebecca Dent, a breast cancer specialist at the National Cancer Center Singapore who was not involved in the study
Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
WHO urges 'urgent protection' of key Gaza hospitals
Geneva: The World Health Organization on Thursday called for the "urgent protection" of two of the last hospitals remaining in the Gaza Strip, warning that the territory's health system is "collapsing". The WHO said the Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital risk becoming "non-functional" because of restrictions on aid and access routes, further damaging a health system already battered by months of war. "There are already no hospitals functioning in the north of Gaza. Nasser and Amal are the last two functioning public hospitals in Khan Younis, where currently most of the population is living," the UN agency said in a statement on X. "Without them, people will lose access to critical health services," it said. The WHO added that closure of the two hospitals would eliminate 490 beds and reduce Gaza's hospital capacity to less than 1,400 beds -- 40 percent below pre-war levels -- for a population of two million people. The WHO said the hospitals have not been told to evacuate but lie within or just outside an Israeli-declared evacuation zone announced on June 2. Israeli authorities have told Gaza's health ministry that access routes to the two hospitals will be blocked, the WHO said. As a result, it will be "difficult, if not impossible" for medical staff and new patients to reach them, it said. "If the situation further deteriorates, both hospitals are at high risk of becoming non-functional, due to movement restrictions, insecurity, and the inability of WHO and partners to resupply or transfer patients," the organisation said. The WHO said both hospitals are already operating "above their capacity", with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a "dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies". It warned the closure of Nasser and Al-Amal would have dire consequences for patients in need of surgical care, intensive care, blood bank and transfusion services, cancer care and dialysis. After nearly 20 months of war triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Gaza is mired in one of the world's gravest humanitarian crises, with civilians enduring relentless bombardment, mass displacement and severe hunger.
