Gazans endure killings, forced displacement
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that his services 'transported 23 martyrs, including several children and women' killed in various locations around the Gaza Strip. Bassal said two children were killed in an air strike on their home in Gaza City's Zeitun neighborhood in the early morning, adding 'the house was completely destroyed'. A family member, Abdel Rahman Azzam, 45, told AFP he was at home when he 'heard a huge explosion at my relative's house'. 'I rushed out in panic and saw the house destroyed and on fire,' he added.
'We evacuated more than 20 injured people, including two martyrs — two children from the family. The screams of children and women were non-stop,' Azzam said. 'They bombed the house with a missile without any prior warning. This is a horrific crime. We sleep without knowing if we will wake up.'
Elsewhere, Bassal said a drone strike on a tent housing displaced people near the southern city of Khan Yunis killed five people, including a child, while four more people were killed by Zionist gunfire in Rafah, also in the south. The Zionist military said in a statement on Sunday that a 20-year-old soldier was killed 'during combat in the northern Gaza Strip'.
The military had issued an evacuation order earlier in the day for parts of Gaza City and nearby areas in the territory's north. Residents were ordered to 'evacuate immediately' to the Al-Mawasi area on the southern coast. The civil defense agency later said a Zionist air strike hit a house in Gaza City, killing three people. AFP video footage filmed from the Zionist entity showed large plumes of smoke rising from northern Gaza.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, relatives arrived to pay their respects to white-shrouded bodies before they are buried. 'A month ago, they (the Zionist entity) told us to go to Al-Mawasi (in Khan Yunis) and we stayed there for a month, it is a safe zone,' said Zeyad Abu Marouf. He said three of his children were killed and a fourth was wounded in the Zionist airstrike. 'We ask God and the Arabs to move and end this occupation and the injustice taking place against us,' Abu Marouf told Reuters.
A resident in the northern town of Jabalia, Ahmed Arar, 60, said his family's house was destroyed after they received a warning it would be bombed from a person identifying himself as a Zionist army officer. 'About half an hour later, they bombed the house, and it was completely destroyed,' he told AFP by telephone. He said the family had already evacuated the house several days ago due to repeated shelling and air strikes. The Zionist campaign has killed at least 56,500 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. – Agencies
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