The Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced today that 22 people were killed in Israeli attacks, especially around Khan Yunis, in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory where the Israeli army is intensifying its operations.
"22 people were killed. The Israeli occupation army carried out a series of fierce airstrikes in Khan Yunis this morning, especially around Nasser Hospital," civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.
Eyewitnesses said the fighting took place near a health facility, whose building was heavily damaged.
Several people were also killed in the northern Gaza Strip. At least two people were killed in a drone strike on a tent housing people displaced by the war.
"The occupation (Israeli) forces killed several martyrs in the courtyard of an Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza and no one has been able to find them," Basal said.
This health facility, located in Beit Lahia in the north, has been surrounded by the Israeli army for several days.
The Israeli military accuses the Palestinian movement Hamas of using civilian buildings, such as hospitals, for military purposes, a charge the movement denies.
The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The attack killed 1.218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Of the 251 people abducted, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 who were declared dead by the military.
Israeli attacks have killed 53.339 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to the latest figures from the Hamas Health Ministry, which the UN considers reliable.
Israel says it will release food into Gaza after announcing new ground attack
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced yesterday that Israel will ease the blockade and release limited amounts of food into Gaza, Reuters reported, citing the statement, which came after the military announced it had launched "large-scale ground operations" in the northern and southern parts of the enclave.
Facing mounting pressure from an aid blockade it imposed in March and the threat of famine, Israel has stepped up its campaign in Gaza, where Palestinian health officials say hundreds of people have been killed in attacks last week.
"On the recommendation of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and out of operational necessity to allow for the expansion of intensive fighting to defeat Hamas, Israel will allow a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis does not develop in the Gaza Strip," Netanyahu's office said.
Eri Kaneko, a spokeswoman for UN aid chief Tom Fletcher, confirmed that Israeli authorities had approached the agency to "continue limited aid deliveries," adding that discussions were underway on logistics "given the conditions on the ground."
Israel issued its statement after sources on both sides said there had been no progress in a new round of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Qatar.
Netanyahu said the talks included talks on a ceasefire and a hostage agreement, as well as a proposal to end the war in exchange for the expulsion of Hamas militants and the demilitarization of the enclave - conditions that Hamas had previously rejected.
The Israeli military suggested in a later statement that it might still scale back operations to help reach an agreement in Doha.
Military Chief Eyal Zamir told soldiers in Gaza that the army would provide the country's leaders with the flexibility they needed to reach a hostage agreement, the statement said.
The Israeli military said it had carried out a preliminary wave of attacks on more than 670 Hamas targets in Gaza over the past week in support of "Gideon's Chariots," its new ground operation aimed at achieving "operational control" in parts of the enclave.
The statement said dozens of Hamas fighters were killed.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 464 Palestinians were killed in the past week alone through Sunday.
"Entire families were wiped off the register (overnight) by Israeli bombardment," Khalil Al-Dekran, a spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, told Reuters by telephone.
The Israeli campaign has devastated Gaza, driving almost all of its residents, about two million, from their homes and killing more than 53.000 people, many of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel has blocked medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since early March to try to pressure Hamas to release hostages and has approved plans that could include seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.
International experts warn of the threat of famine.
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