Israeli military strikes in Gaza kill at least 70 people, including local journalist and his family members
Israeli military strikes in Gaza have killed at least 70 people, including a local journalist, Palestinian medics said.
Hassan Samour, who worked for the Hamas-run Aqsa radio station, was killed along with his 11 family members on Thursday when their home was struck during Israel's second consecutive night of heavy bombing.
The death of Mr Samour came after air strikes on Tuesday at a hospital in Khan Younis that killed a well-known Palestinian journalist, Hassan Aslih.
The Hamas-run health ministry said most of the victims, including women and children, were killed in Khan Younis in southern Gaza in air strikes that hit homes and tents.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has intensified its offensive in Gaza as it tries to eradicate Hamas in retaliation for the deadly attacks the Palestinian militant group carried out on Israel in 2023.
Hamas said in a statement that Israel was making a "desperate attempt to negotiate under cover of fire" as indirect ceasefire talks take place between Israel and Hamas, involving Trump envoys and Qatar and Egyptian mediators in Doha.
Israel carried out the latest strikes on the day Palestinians commemorate the "Naqba", when hundreds of thousands of people fled or were forced to flee their hometowns and villages during the 1948 Middle East war that gave birth to the state of Israel, Reuters reported.
Ahmed Hamad, a Palestinian in Gaza City who has been displaced multiple times, told Reuters that what Gazans were experiencing was worse than the Nakba of 1948.
"The truth is, we live in a constant state of violence and displacement. Wherever we go, we face attacks.
"Death surrounds us everywhere," he said.
The latest strikes follow attacks on Gaza on Wednesday that killed at least 80 people, local health officials said.
In its latest statement, Hamas has lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to escalate the violence against Gaza.
"Netanyahu wants an endless war, he doesn't care about the fate of his prisoners, and he is the last to care about their lives and their return to their families," the Islamic militant group said.
"Netanyahu, with his mentality obsessed with killing and destruction, has proven that he is not only a danger to our people, but has become a real danger to the region and the entire world."
Hamas stated that the world "wants to see an eventual cessation of war".
On Tuesday, Hamas released and handed over American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander to Israeli forces in effort to ensure aid is allowed into Gaza and secure a ceasefire deal.
The group said the development was a result of discussions with Qatar, Egypt and Türkiye.
Reuters reported that Hamas said it was ready to free all the remaining hostages it was holding in Gaza in return for an end to the war.
However, Mr Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting against Hamas until his country achieves its goals of destroying the militant group and freeing all hostages it holds.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, more than 52,900 people in Gaza have been killed and 119,846 injuries since the seventh of October 2023.
The UK's permanent representative to the UN, Barbara Woodward, has urged Israel to lift the blockade on aid entering Gaza.
"Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool or a military tactic," Ms Woodward said when delivering a joint statement on behalf of Denmark, France, Greece, Slovenia, and the UK.
"Blocking aid as a 'pressure lever' is unacceptable.
"We have two clear messages for the Government of Israel: lift the block on aid entering Gaza now and enable the UN and all humanitarians to save lives," she said.
Ms Woodward has also criticised Israel's plans to expand its military operations in Gaza, approved by the Israeli Security Cabinet last week.
A US-backed humanitarian organisation is set to start work in Gaza by the end of May under an aid distribution plan and has also asked Israel to let the United Nations and others resume aid deliveries to Palestinians now until it is set up.
Israel's aid blockade in Gaza has entered a third month, with food kitchens forced to close and warehouses lying empty.
ABC/Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Breakfast Wrap: Israel intercepts Gaza aid boat
The Madleen aid vessel, crewed by activists including Greta Thunberg and en route to Gaza - has been intercepted by Israeli forces and taken to an Israeli port. On The Breakfast Wrap podcast you'll hear from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition group that is behind this voyage. Also on the podcast, US President Donald Trump says he would support the arrest of California Governor Gavin Newsom following protests in Los Angeles this week. The president's remarks came after the Democratic Governor vowed to sue the Trump administration over the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to the city, calling it an illegal act. There's still a heavy police presence in downtown LA as a clean-up effort begins. And Senator Lidia Thorpe speaks out following the deaths in custody in the Northern Territory. Recap the morning's news, politics and global affairs with the Breakfast Wrap
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Inside the secret tunnel where Israel says a senior Hamas leader died
Two feet wide and less than six feet tall, the tunnel led deep beneath a major hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The underground air bore the stench of what smelled like human remains. After walking about 40 metres along the tunnel, we found the likely cause. In a tiny room to which the tunnel led, the floor was stained with blood. It was here, according to the Israeli military, that Mohammed Sinwar – one of Hamas' top militant commanders – was killed last month after a nearby barrage of Israeli strikes. What we saw in that dark and narrow tunnel is one of the war's biggest Rorschach tests, the embodiment of a broader narrative battle between Israelis and Palestinians over how the conflict should be portrayed. The military escorted a reporter from The New York Times to the tunnel on Sunday afternoon, as part of a brief and controlled visit for international journalists that the Israelis hoped would prove that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure as a shield for militant activity. To Palestinians, Israel's attack on and subsequent capture of the hospital compound highlighted its disregard for civilian activity. Last month, the military ordered the hospital's staff and patients to leave the compound, along with the residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Then, officials said, they bored a huge hole, about nine metres deep, in a courtyard within the hospital grounds. Soldiers used that hole to gain access to the tunnel and retrieve Sinwar's body, and they later escorted journalists there so we could see what they called his final hiding place. There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself, so we lowered ourselves into the Israeli-made cavity using a rope. To join this controlled tour, the NYT agreed not to photograph most soldiers' faces or publish geographic details that would put them in immediate physical danger. To the Israelis who brought us there, this hiding place, directly underneath the emergency department of the European Gaza Hospital, is emblematic of how Hamas has consistently endangered civilians and broken international law by directing its military operations from the cover of hospitals and schools. Hamas has also dug tunnels underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and a United Nations complex elsewhere in that city. 'We were dragged by Hamas to this point,' Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said at the hospital on Sunday afternoon. 'If they weren't building their infrastructure under the hospitals, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't attack this hospital.' Defrin said Israel had tried to minimise damage to the hospital by striking the area around its buildings, without a direct hit on the medical facilities themselves. 'The aim was not to damage the hospital and, as much as we could, to avoid collateral damage,' he said. To the Palestinians who were forced from here, the Israeli attack on Sinwar embodied Israel's willingness to prioritise the destruction of Hamas over the protection of civilian life and infrastructure, particularly the health system. According to the World Health Organisation, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza's 36 hospitals. Many, like the European Gaza Hospital, are now out of service, fuelling accusations from rights groups and foreign governments – strongly denied by the Israelis – that Israel is engaged in genocide, in part by wrecking the Palestinian health system. Loading 'It's morally and legally unacceptable, but Israel thinks it is above the law,' Dr Salah al-Hams, the hospital spokesperson, said in a phone interview from another part of southern Gaza. Although Israel targeted the periphery of the hospital site, leaving the hospital buildings standing, al-Hams said the strikes had wounded 10 people within the compound, damaged its water and sewage systems and dislodged part of its roof. It killed 23 people in buildings beyond its perimeter, he said, 17 more than were reported the day of the attack. The tremors caused by the strikes were like an 'earthquake,' al-Hams said. Al-Hams said he had been unaware of any tunnels beneath the hospital. Even if they were there, he said, 'This does not justify the attack. Israel should have found other ways to eliminate any wanted commander. There were a thousand other ways to do it.' Loading Our journey to the hospital revealed much about the current dynamics of the war in Gaza. In a roughly 20-minute ride from the Israeli border, we saw no Palestinians – the result of Israel's decision to order the residents of southern Gaza to abandon their homes and head west to the sea. Many buildings were simply piles of rubble, destroyed either by Israeli strikes and demolitions or Hamas' booby traps. Here and there, some buildings survived, more or less intact; on one balcony, someone had left a tidy line of potted cactuses. We drove in open-top jeeps, a sign that across this swath of south-eastern Gaza, the Israeli military no longer fears being ambushed by Hamas fighters. Until at least the Salah al-Din highway, the territory's main north-south artery, the Israeli military seemed to be in complete command after the expansion of its ground campaign in March. The European Gaza Hospital and the tunnel beneath it are among the places that now appear to be exclusively under Israeli control. Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in rare cases. If a medical site is used for military purposes, it could be regarded as a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack. The Israeli military said it had tried to limit harm to civilians by striking only around the edges of the hospital compound. But international legal experts said that any assessment of the strike's legality needed to take into account its effect on the wider health system in southern Gaza. In a territory where many hospitals are already not operational, experts said, it is harder to find legal justification for strikes that put the remaining hospitals out of service, even if militants hide beneath them. When we entered the tunnel, we found it almost entirely intact. The crammed room where Sinwar and four fellow militants were said to have died was stained with blood, but its walls appeared undamaged. The mattresses, clothes and bedsheets did not appear to have been dislodged by the explosions, and an Israeli rifle – stolen earlier in the war, the soldiers said – dangled from a hook in the corner. It was not immediately clear how Sinwar was killed, and Defrin said he could not provide a definitive answer. He suggested that Sinwar and his allies may have suffocated in the aftermath of the strikes or been knocked over by a shock wave unleashed by explosions. If gases released by such explosions intentionally poisoned Sinwar, it would raise legal questions, said international law experts. 'It would be an unlawful use of a conventional bomb – a generally lawful weapon – if the intent is to kill with the asphyxiating gases released by that bomb,' said Sarah Harrison, a former lawyer at the US Defence Department and an analyst at the International Crisis Group. Defrin denied any such intent. 'This is something that I have to emphasise here, as a Jew first and then as a human being: We don't use gas as weapons,' he said. In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to check for traps. Defrin denied the practice. The tunnel was excavated by Israelis, he said.
The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
Inside the secret tunnel where Israel says a senior Hamas leader died
Two feet wide and less than six feet tall, the tunnel led deep beneath a major hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The underground air bore the stench of what smelled like human remains. After walking about 40 metres along the tunnel, we found the likely cause. In a tiny room to which the tunnel led, the floor was stained with blood. It was here, according to the Israeli military, that Mohammed Sinwar – one of Hamas' top militant commanders – was killed last month after a nearby barrage of Israeli strikes. What we saw in that dark and narrow tunnel is one of the war's biggest Rorschach tests, the embodiment of a broader narrative battle between Israelis and Palestinians over how the conflict should be portrayed. The military escorted a reporter from The New York Times to the tunnel on Sunday afternoon, as part of a brief and controlled visit for international journalists that the Israelis hoped would prove that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure as a shield for militant activity. To Palestinians, Israel's attack on and subsequent capture of the hospital compound highlighted its disregard for civilian activity. Last month, the military ordered the hospital's staff and patients to leave the compound, along with the residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Then, officials said, they bored a huge hole, about nine metres deep, in a courtyard within the hospital grounds. Soldiers used that hole to gain access to the tunnel and retrieve Sinwar's body, and they later escorted journalists there so we could see what they called his final hiding place. There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself, so we lowered ourselves into the Israeli-made cavity using a rope. To join this controlled tour, the NYT agreed not to photograph most soldiers' faces or publish geographic details that would put them in immediate physical danger. To the Israelis who brought us there, this hiding place, directly underneath the emergency department of the European Gaza Hospital, is emblematic of how Hamas has consistently endangered civilians and broken international law by directing its military operations from the cover of hospitals and schools. Hamas has also dug tunnels underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and a United Nations complex elsewhere in that city. 'We were dragged by Hamas to this point,' Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said at the hospital on Sunday afternoon. 'If they weren't building their infrastructure under the hospitals, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't attack this hospital.' Defrin said Israel had tried to minimise damage to the hospital by striking the area around its buildings, without a direct hit on the medical facilities themselves. 'The aim was not to damage the hospital and, as much as we could, to avoid collateral damage,' he said. To the Palestinians who were forced from here, the Israeli attack on Sinwar embodied Israel's willingness to prioritise the destruction of Hamas over the protection of civilian life and infrastructure, particularly the health system. According to the World Health Organisation, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza's 36 hospitals. Many, like the European Gaza Hospital, are now out of service, fuelling accusations from rights groups and foreign governments – strongly denied by the Israelis – that Israel is engaged in genocide, in part by wrecking the Palestinian health system. Loading 'It's morally and legally unacceptable, but Israel thinks it is above the law,' Dr Salah al-Hams, the hospital spokesperson, said in a phone interview from another part of southern Gaza. Although Israel targeted the periphery of the hospital site, leaving the hospital buildings standing, al-Hams said the strikes had wounded 10 people within the compound, damaged its water and sewage systems and dislodged part of its roof. It killed 23 people in buildings beyond its perimeter, he said, 17 more than were reported the day of the attack. The tremors caused by the strikes were like an 'earthquake,' al-Hams said. Al-Hams said he had been unaware of any tunnels beneath the hospital. Even if they were there, he said, 'This does not justify the attack. Israel should have found other ways to eliminate any wanted commander. There were a thousand other ways to do it.' Loading Our journey to the hospital revealed much about the current dynamics of the war in Gaza. In a roughly 20-minute ride from the Israeli border, we saw no Palestinians – the result of Israel's decision to order the residents of southern Gaza to abandon their homes and head west to the sea. Many buildings were simply piles of rubble, destroyed either by Israeli strikes and demolitions or Hamas' booby traps. Here and there, some buildings survived, more or less intact; on one balcony, someone had left a tidy line of potted cactuses. We drove in open-top jeeps, a sign that across this swath of south-eastern Gaza, the Israeli military no longer fears being ambushed by Hamas fighters. Until at least the Salah al-Din highway, the territory's main north-south artery, the Israeli military seemed to be in complete command after the expansion of its ground campaign in March. The European Gaza Hospital and the tunnel beneath it are among the places that now appear to be exclusively under Israeli control. Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in rare cases. If a medical site is used for military purposes, it could be regarded as a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack. The Israeli military said it had tried to limit harm to civilians by striking only around the edges of the hospital compound. But international legal experts said that any assessment of the strike's legality needed to take into account its effect on the wider health system in southern Gaza. In a territory where many hospitals are already not operational, experts said, it is harder to find legal justification for strikes that put the remaining hospitals out of service, even if militants hide beneath them. When we entered the tunnel, we found it almost entirely intact. The crammed room where Sinwar and four fellow militants were said to have died was stained with blood, but its walls appeared undamaged. The mattresses, clothes and bedsheets did not appear to have been dislodged by the explosions, and an Israeli rifle – stolen earlier in the war, the soldiers said – dangled from a hook in the corner. It was not immediately clear how Sinwar was killed, and Defrin said he could not provide a definitive answer. He suggested that Sinwar and his allies may have suffocated in the aftermath of the strikes or been knocked over by a shock wave unleashed by explosions. If gases released by such explosions intentionally poisoned Sinwar, it would raise legal questions, said international law experts. 'It would be an unlawful use of a conventional bomb – a generally lawful weapon – if the intent is to kill with the asphyxiating gases released by that bomb,' said Sarah Harrison, a former lawyer at the US Defence Department and an analyst at the International Crisis Group. Defrin denied any such intent. 'This is something that I have to emphasise here, as a Jew first and then as a human being: We don't use gas as weapons,' he said. In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to check for traps. Defrin denied the practice. The tunnel was excavated by Israelis, he said.
