At least 60 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes across Gaza in a 24-hour period, Gaza’s health ministry said on Friday, as Israel pressed ahead with its military offensive and let in minimal aid to the strip.
The dead included 10 people in the southern city of Khan Younis, four in the central town of Deir Al Balah and nine in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al Aqsa and Al Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Israel is facing mounting international criticism for its latest offensive and pressure to let aid into Gaza amid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
The strikes that lasted into Friday morning came a day after Israeli tanks and drones attacked a hospital in northern Gaza, igniting fires and causing extensive damage, Palestinian hospital officials said on Thursday. Videos taken by a health official at Al-Awda Hospital show walls blown away and thick black smoke billowing wreckage.
Israel said it will continue to strike Hamas until all of the 58 Israeli hostages are released – fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive, according to Israel – and until Hamas disarms.
The strikes come a day after two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot while leaving a reception for young diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum, in Washington, DC. The suspect told police he “did it for Palestine,” according to court documents filed on Thursday as he was charged with murder. He didn’t enter a plea.
On Friday a Geneva-based advocacy group said it was taking legal action to urge Swiss authorities to investigate the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US-backed group preparing to move aid into the Gaza Strip, justice watchdog TRIAL International said Friday.
Describing the GHF as a private security company, it said aid distribution should be left to UN organisations and humanitarian agencies.
“The dire humanitarian situation in Gaza requires an immediate response,” TRIAL International’s executive director, Philip Grant, said in a statement. “However, the planned use of private security companies leads to a risky militarisation of aid,” he added. That, he argued, “is not justified in a context where the United Nations and humanitarian NGOs have the impartiality, resources and expertise necessary to distribute this aid without delay to the civilian population.”
Agencies
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