Gaza civil defense says Israeli strikes kill 15 amid torrent of criticism

L'Orient-Le Jour

5 days ago

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed 15 people in the Palestinian territory Tuesday, just hours after the World Health Organization said Israel attacked its facilities amid expanding ground operations.
The civil defense agency has accused Israeli forces of killing Gaza residents on a daily basis during the gruelling 21-month war that has seen tens of thousands killed and many more displaced.
Agency spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP that Israeli strikes on the Al-Shati camp west of Gaza City killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 50.
Most of Gaza's population has been displaced at least once during the war and the Al-Shati camp – on the Mediterranean coast – hosts thousands of people displaced from the north in tents and makeshift shelters.
Raed Bakr, 30, lives with his three children and said he heard "a massive explosion" at about 1:40 a.m. on Tuesday, which blew their tent away.
"I felt like I was in a nightmare. Fire, dust, smoke and body parts flying through the air, dirt everywhere. The children were screaming," Bakr, whose wife was killed last year, told AFP.
Reports of the latest death toll came as the Roman Catholic church's most senior cleric in the Holy Land said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "morally unacceptable."
"We have seen men holding out in the sun for hours in the hope of a simple meal," Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa told a news conference in Jerusalem after visiting the war-torn Palestinian territory.
New ground operations
His visit came after an Israeli army strike on the only Catholic church in Gaza killed three people last week, prompting Pope Leo XIV to condemn the "barbarity" of the war and the blind "use of force."
The World Health Organization too sharply criticised the Israeli military.
The U.N. agency's chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, accused soldiers of entering its staff residence, and forcing women and children to evacuate, as they handcuffed, stripped and interrogated male staff at gunpoint.
The latest criticism of Israel came as its ground forces expanded ground operations in Deir al-Balah following intense shelling of the area in central Gaza on Monday.
The Israeli military had earlier ordered residents to leave, warning of imminent action in an area where it had not previously operated.
The civil defence agency's Bassal said two people were killed in Deir el-Balah.
The Israeli military later said in a statement published Tuesday that its troops "identified shots being fired toward them in the Deir al-Balah area, and responded toward the area from which the shooting originated."
"The [army] will not refrain from operating in areas where terrorist activity threatens the security of the State of Israel," the military added.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were living in the area, which until now had been considered relatively safe.
Some 30,000 were living in displacement sites.
AFP footage from central Gaza showed a large plume of smoke rising over Deir al-Balah on Tuesday while a surveillance drone was heard buzzing overhead.
OCHA said nearly 88 percent of the entire Gaza Strip was now either under evacuation orders or within Israeli militarised zones, forcing the population of 2.4 million into an ever-shrinking space.