Israel pounded Gaza overnight with deadly attacks targeting displaced people in two camps and a school, as it ordered the forced evacuation of one of the last barely operational hospitals in the enclave’s besieged north.
The army launched a wave of attacks on the so-called al-Mawasi “safe zone” in the south, burning refugee tents in a drone attack that killed seven people, and new strikes against a civilian car and a vehicle carrying security personnel. killing four others.
In separate attacks, the army targeted a school housing displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, and quadcopters and armored vehicles fired on the building early Monday, killing one person.
The army also killed four people in an area north of the camp, according to the Arab news agency Tel Aviv Tribune and Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The raids ended a bloody 24 hours in the Gaza Strip, with medical sources telling Tel Aviv Tribune Arabic that a total of 50 people had been killed since Sunday morning.
As the attacks continued, the army ordered the closure and forced evacuation of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, endangering around 400 civilians, including babies in incubators.
The hospital is one of the few still functioning in the north, where thousands of people have been trapped under a grueling siege for nearly three months.
Wafa reported on Sunday that Israeli forces targeted the hospital with bombs, artillery shells and sniper fire, specifically hitting the women’s, maternity and neonatal wards, killing three civilians.
Hospital director Hussam Abu Safia told the Reuters news agency that the army was directly targeting the fuel tanks, which could potentially “cause a large explosion and many civilian casualties inside.” .
Obeying the shutdown order was “almost impossible” because there weren’t enough ambulances to get patients out, he said.
The Palestinian armed group Hamas said the military attacks on Kamal Adwan and threats to forcibly evacuate patients, wounded and displaced people constituted “a crime of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement.”
Attacks on “safe” places
From Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud said: “We are currently in a situation where a marked evacuation zone is not safe for displaced people, nor is the area evacuation of al-Mawasi, neither schools nor shelters. , not even hospitals.
“We are seeing repeated attacks on these designated areas over the past month,” he said. “What we are seeing now highlights the vulnerability of truly…traumatized displaced civilians in these areas. »
The charity Oxfam said on Sunday that Israeli authorities had allowed only 12 aid trucks to enter northern Gaza over the past two and a half months.
“Deliberate delays and systematic obstruction” by the army meant that only 12 of the “meager” 34 trucks allowed into the area were able to distribute aid to starving Palestinians.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Sunday that there had been an “escalation” in Israel’s war on Gaza over the past 24 hours.
In a post on X, he reiterated his calls for a ceasefire, saying “the world must not become numb.”
#Gaza
Escalation in the last 24 hours.
Other civilians were reportedly killed or injured.Attacks on schools and hospitals are commonplace.
The world must not become numb.All wars have rules
All these rules were broken.A ceasefire is long overdue
A…– Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 22, 2024
