At least 50 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza, Palestinian military doctors said, as Israeli tanks moved into the northern area of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
At least 20 people were killed and others injured in an Israeli attack on a tent encampment in Almawashi, near Khan Younis, medics said Wednesday. The Palestinian Civil Defense Agency said the attack set several tents housing displaced families ablaze.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir Bala in central Gaza, said the death toll is expected to rise further.
Patients hospitalized “were expected to die simply because of the lack of medical care, medical supplies and medical staff,” Mahmoud said.
“This is not the first time we have seen something like this happen. Dissatisfaction is growing among the displaced residents of Al Mawashi evacuation zone,” he said. “The Israeli military ordered them to evacuate to avoid bombing attacks during the first weeks of this genocidal war, but they have repeatedly fallen victim to these unpredictable attacks.”
At least 10 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit three residential buildings in Gaza City, the Civil Defense Agency announced. Many victims remain trapped under the rubble, and rescue efforts continue.
Medics said 11 people, including six children and one medic, were killed in three airstrikes on areas in central Gaza. Five of the dead were said to have been lined up outside the bakery.
Nine more Palestinians were killed in a tank fire in Rafah near the Egyptian border, medical officials said.
“It’s very urgent.”
Israeli forces also opened fire on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahya in northern Gaza for the fifth day in a row, said hospital director Hassam Abu Safiyah. He said three of the medical staff were injured on Tuesday night, one seriously.
“Drones are dropping bombs filled with shrapnel and anyone who tries to move will be injured,” Abu Safiyah said. “This situation is extremely urgent.”
He said more than 100 patients were at risk of death inside the besieged hospital and that Israeli forces were blocking access to the nearby al-Awda hospital.
Residents of Jabalia, Beit Rahiya and Beit Hanun, three major towns in the north, said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of their homes.
Palestinians say Israeli forces are trying to expel residents from the northern tip of Gaza, threatening them with death if they do not flee and using artillery shelling to create a buffer zone. . Israeli forces have been besieging the area since launching a new ground offensive about two months ago.
The siege has exacerbated an already dire humanitarian crisis amid impending famine.
Hamas said the house bombing in Beit Rahiya and the targeting of Kamal Adwan Hospital were “an assertion of an ongoing war” and “genocide” in Gaza.
The group said in a statement that Israel plans to continue to flout international law “in light of the international system’s shameful failure to end these horrific crimes.”
Hamas said Israel’s actions “are being carried out with the complete concealment and protection of the American government and the capital of some Western countries.”
Residents in the Khan Yunis area told Reuters that the Israeli tanks moved in a day after the military issued a new evacuation order after Palestinian groups fired rockets from the area.
With shells falling near their homes, families left their homes on Wednesday and headed west toward Almawasi, which the Israeli military has designated as a “safe zone” but has since been repeatedly attacked.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there is no safe area left in Gaza and nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been repeatedly displaced.
Israel’s military operation has killed more than 44,500 Palestinians, injured many others and reduced much of the enclave to rubble since it began last October.
Last week, Israel agreed to a ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, halting most fighting in Lebanon’s parallel conflict with the Gaza war.
But the war in Gaza began with just one ceasefire, which lasted a week, more than a year ago.
