The death toll from a strike on a crowded shelter in Gaza has risen to 12, with over 75 wounded, according to Thomas White, a senior official with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. The update Thursday said the attack the previous day involved two tank shells.
The agency did not directly blame Israel, which is the only party to the conflict that has tanks. The Israeli military said it has “currently ruled out” that the strike was carried out by its aircraft or artillery but was still investigating. It says the building might have been hit by a Hamas rocket.
The fighting in Khan Younis has isolated its two main hospitals, stranding hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people inside. A third hospital was evacuated overnight, White said. Thousands of people rushed to escape farther south in recent days, crowding into shelters and tent camps near the border with Egypt.
The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 25,700 people have been killed and another 63,000 wounded in the enclave since the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, when militants from Gaza killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.
Currently:
— Cease-fire efforts for the Israel-Hamas war gain steam. But an agreement still appears elusive.
— Freed Israeli hostage says she met Hamas’ leader in a tunnel, where she was kept in dire conditions.
— U.N. court will issue a ruling Friday on South Africa’s request for an order to halt Israel’s Gaza offensive.
— Find more of news agencies’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s the latest:
TEL AVIV — Israeli singer and actor Idan Amedi, known for his role in the popular series “Fauda,” is being released from the hospital Thursday after he was seriously wounded on Jan. 8 while his unit was laying explosives to destroy a tunnel in central Gaza.
Six Israeli soldiers were killed in the operation and dozens were injured when a tank shell prematurely ignited the explosives before the soldiers had cleared the area.
“Although I was seriously injured, my spirit is strong,” Amedi said in a news conference upon his release to home rehabilitation. “I refuse to make this injury the story of my life; it’s just another milestone. I will come back to sing and act, and with God’s help, I will also return to fight for my country.”
Amedi, 35, has been on reserve duty in the Israeli military since Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel has enlisted roughly 360,000 reserve soldiers from all walks of life in its war against Hamas.
Amedi said he plans to return to act in Fauda after his rehabilitation. “Fauda” follows a team of undercover agents from Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, in their operations against Palestinians. While the show is critically acclaimed, some Palestinians say it trivializes their experience under Israel’s open-ended military occupation of the West Bank. Amedi played Sagi Tzur, a rookie undercover agent, during the series’ second to fourth seasons, and is also a successful singer-songwriter in Israel.
JERUSALEM — A United Nations official says the death toll from a strike on a crowded shelter in Gaza has risen to 12, with over 75 wounded.
Thomas White, a senior official with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said Thursday that 15 of those wounded were in critical condition. UNRWA says two tank shells hit a building in a shelter housing thousands of displaced Palestinians on Wednesday in the southern city of Khan Younis, which has seen heavy fighting in recent days. The building caught fire, it said.
It did not directly blame Israel, which is the only party to the conflict that has tanks.
The Israeli military said it has “currently ruled out” that the strike was carried out by its aircraft or artillery but was still investigating. It says the building might have been hit by a Hamas rocket.
The fighting in Khan Younis has isolated its two main hospitals, Nasser and Al-Amal, stranding hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people inside.
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