Over 50 killed, missing after Israel strikes residential building in Gaza
More than 50 Palestinians have been killed or remain missing after an Israeli air raid on a residential building in the Jabalia al-Balad area of northern Gaza, Palestinian Civil Defense sources say.
Israeli drones targeted more than five locations near the entrance to Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Friday morning, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
When people rushed to help the victims, Israeli forces attacked them again, injuring several more Palestinians.
Separately, three people, including a young girl, lost their lives in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment near Abdel Aal junction on al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City.
Two siblings were killed, and their father suffered critical injuries when an Israeli strike hit a home in the western camp area of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
In eastern Khan Yunis, several casualties are reported after Israeli forces struck a home in the town of Abasan al-Kabira.
Additionally, a 32-year-old man succumbed to injuries sustained during an earlier airstrike on Bani Suheila neighborhood, east of Khan Yunis.
Local sources said Israeli forces prevented civil defense crew members from extinguishing the blaze.
Israel stepped up its onslaught at the weekend, vowing to defeat Gaza’s Hamas resistance fighters.
For more than two months, Israel has banned all food, medicine and other goods from entering the territory that is home to some 2 million Palestinians, as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground invasions.
Palestinians in Gaza rely almost entirely on outside aid to survive because Israel’s onslaught has destroyed almost all the territory’s food production capabilities.
After weeks of insisting Gaza had enough food, Israel relented in the face of international pressure and began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into the territory this week — including some carrying baby food.
But UN agencies say the amount is woefully insufficient, compared to around 600 trucks a day that entered during a recent ceasefire and that are necessary to meet basic needs.
A spokesperson for the German government said on Friday the aid trucks that Israel has allowed into the Gaza Strip this week are “too little, too late”.
At least 53,762 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and another 122,197 individuals injured in the brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the besieged coastal territory.
