KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (news agencies) — Multiple airstrikes hit Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis overnight into Thursday, killing more than 50 people in a second consecutive night of heavy bombing, while another airstrike in the north of the Palestinian territory left more than a dozen people dead, authorities said.
The strikes come as U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Middle East, visiting Gulf states but not Israel. There had been widespread hope that Trump’s regional visit could usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza. An Israeli blockade of the territory is now in its third month.
An media cameraman in Khan Younis counted 10 airstrikes on the city overnight into Thursday, and saw numerous bodies taken to the morgue in the city’s Nasser Hospital. It took time to identify some of the bodies due to the extent of their injuries. The hospital’s morgue confirmed 54 people had been killed.
The dead included a journalist working for Qatari television network Al Araby TV, the network announced on social media, saying Hasan Samour had been killed along with 11 members of his family in one of the strikes in Khan Younis.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes.
It was the second night of heavy bombing, after airstrikes Wednesday on northern and southern Gaza killed at least 70 people, including almost two dozen children.
Another strike in Jabaliya in northern Gaza hit a complex including a mosque and a small medical clinic, killing 13 people, said the Civil Defense, a first responder agency operating under Gaza’s Hamas-run government.
In Nasser Hospital, Safaa Al-Najjar, her face stained with blood, wept as the shroud-wrapped bodies of two of her children were brought to her: 1 1/2-year-old Motaz Al-Bayyok and 1 1/2 month-old Moaz Al-Bayyok.
The family was caught in the overnight airstrikes. All five of Al-Najjar’s other children, ranging in ages from 3 to 12, were injured, while her husband was in intensive care.
One of her sons, 11-year-old Yusuf, his head heavily bandaged, screamed in grief as the shroud of his younger sibling was parted to show his face.
“I gave them dinner and put them to sleep as usual, it was a normal day. Suddenly I don’t know what happened, the world went upside down,” she said as others tried to comfort her. “I don’t know, I don’t know … what is their fault? What is their fault?”
Outside the hospital, mourners gathered to pray as the dead, laid out in rows in white body bags, were loaded onto a truck to be taken for burial.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed earlier in the week to push ahead with a promised escalation of force in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip to pursue his aim of destroying the Hamas militant group, which governs Gaza.
In comments released by Netanyahu’s office Tuesday, the prime minister said Israeli forces were days away from entering Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission … It means destroying Hamas.”
International rights group Human Rights Watch said Thursday that Israel’s stated plan of seizing Gaza and displacing hundreds of thousands of people “inches closer to extermination,” and called on the international community to speak out against it.
United Arab Emirates Dirham Exchange Rate
