At least 29 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in a residential area of Rafah in southern Gaza, while a hospital was attacked in northern Gaza and 13 people were killed in a attack on a refugee camp in this part of the enclave.
Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, to escape Israeli bombing further north, despite fears they would not be safe there either.
“Three residential buildings in one area were destroyed in the attack,” Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud said from Rafah on Tuesday.
The number of casualties is expected to rise as more bodies are removed from the rubble, under which people were also trapped, he added.
Journalist Adel Zoroub was among 29 people killed in the Rafah airstrike, the government media office in Gaza said on its Telegram channel.
Separately, at least 13 Palestinians were killed and many others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Health Ministry said. enclave.
Heavy fighting has raged in northern Gaza, where Hamas continues to put up fierce resistance in what is now a wasteland seven weeks after the assault by Israeli tanks and soldiers.
Searches in hospitals
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had turned al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza into barracks after detaining more than 240 people.
Among those detained are “80 hospital staff, 40 patients and 120 people displaced within the hospital,” he said.
They arrested six hospital staff, including the hospital’s director, Ahmed Muhanna, according to al-Qudra.
Israeli forces also attacked the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City overnight and into Tuesday, according to the church that runs it, destroying a wall at its main entrance and arresting most of its staff.
Don Binder, pastor of St George’s Anglican Cathedral in occupied east Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying the raid left only two doctors, four nurses and two janitors to take serious care of more than a hundred people. injured patients without running water or electricity.
“The fact that we have been able to keep our Ahli Anglican Hospital open for so long has been a great blessing to the many wounded in Gaza City,” Binder wrote in a Facebook post Monday evening. “It ended today.”
He added that an Israeli tank was parked on the rubble at the entrance to the hospital, preventing anyone from entering or leaving.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which continued to target and attack health facilities in the enclave.
A World Health Organization (WHO) official said Monday that the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, which Israeli troops attacked last week, had stopped functioning and patients there including babies, had been evacuated.
“We cannot afford to lose hospitals,” said Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for Gaza.
Peeperkorn also said that around 4,000 displaced people sheltering on the grounds of the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, were in danger as Israel continued its military operations there.
Gaza’s health ministry said Tuesday that 19,667 Palestinians have been killed and 52,586 injured in the Israeli assault on the Hamas-led enclave since the war began on October 7.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to achieve complete victory over Hamas, whose fighters killed about 1,140 people and captured 240 in a surprise Oct. 7 raid in Israel, according to Israeli figures.
The intensification of Israeli attacks in Gaza has sparked outcry among many governments and international organizations over civilian deaths, hunger and homelessness.
“Clear progress” in the negotiations
Meanwhile, negotiations for another truce between the sides continue with mediation efforts led by Qatar, amid repeated calls for an end to hostilities from the international community.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Alan Fisher, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, said there was “clear progress” toward a potential new prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas after Bill Burns, the director of the American Central Intelligence Agency, went to Warsaw for negotiations with David Barnea. , head of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, and the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
However, with Israel indicating that the “next stage of the war” will take place in mid-January, it is possible that Hamas will decide to “just sit back” until then “to see how things play out,” it said. Fisher said.
Hamas could wait until then “to abandon the prisoners and use them as bargaining chips when things really start to change on the ground”, he added.
A senior Hamas official on Tuesday rejected holding negotiations during the war, but said the group was open to any move to end it.
“We affirm our position of categorically rejecting any form of negotiation on the exchange of prisoners in the context of the ongoing Israeli genocidal war,” Basem Naem said in a statement.
“We are, however, open to any initiative that contributes to putting an end to the aggression against our people and to opening the crossing points to deliver aid and provide relief to the Palestinian people,” he added.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog has said he is ready to strike another truce to reclaim captives held in Gaza and allow more aid to reach the besieged Palestinian enclave.
“Israel is ready for a new humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian assistance to enable the release of the hostages,” Herzog told a gathering of ambassadors, according to his office.
“And the responsibility lies entirely with (Hamas leader Yahya) Sinwar and the Hamas leadership,” he said.
On Monday, Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, released a one-minute video of three elderly Israeli prisoners pleading for their immediate release.