Health officials in the Gaza Strip said on Monday that 58 people had died in the past 24 hours in the Palestinian territory, including eight in an attack on a tent encampment in Almawashi, an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone. did.
Doctors at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which received the bodies, said two children were among the dead in the al-Mawasi strike.
The hospital announced that in addition to two additional deaths in attacks on vehicles in Al Mawashi city, six more deaths were recorded in attacks on individuals escorting support convoys.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah said it had received the bodies of three people after an airstrike on a school that served as a shelter in the established Nuseyrat refugee camp.
The Israeli military has attacked only insurgents, accusing them of blending in with civilians. Late Sunday, it said it had targeted Hamas fighters in humanitarian zones. Hamas denies operating among civilians.
The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, told Reuters that Israel had ordered the facility to be vacated.
Hassam Abu Safiya said it was “nearly impossible” to comply with the order because there were not enough ambulances to transport patients. Kamal Adwan Hospital has been under repeated attacks since October when Israel sent tanks into Beit Rahiya and neighboring Beit Hanun and Jabaliya.
“Currently, there are nearly 400 civilians in the hospital, including infants in the neonatal ward, whose lives depend on oxygen and incubators,” Abu Safiyah said. “Without support, equipment and time, we cannot safely evacuate these patients. We are sending this message under heavy artillery fire and direct targeting of fuel tanks, but if we are attacked, If it did, there would be a huge explosion, and there would be a lot of casualties among the civilians inside.”
An Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson told The Washington Post that the military had not issued any evacuation recommendations to hospitals this weekend.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said the three main hospitals in northern Gaza, one of which is Kamal Adwan, are barely functioning.
Israel says the new offensive in the north is aimed at preventing Hamas fighters from regrouping in the north.
Tens of thousands of people have fled to Gaza’s exposed Mediterranean coastline, facing harsh winter conditions with insufficient shelter, food and fuel. Temperatures dropped and a series of storms destroyed makeshift tents.
Oxfam said starving Palestinian civilians were among the 34 trucks loaded with food and water allowed into northern Gaza in the past 10 weeks due to “deliberate delays and systematic obstruction” by Israeli forces. He said only 12 vehicles were able to distribute aid.
Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s head of policy in the occupied Palestinian territories, told Al Jazeera: “After 14 months of relentless shelling and starvation of entire populations, some people are acting out of desperation. Gaza is currently in complete chaos.”
Kalidi added: “Some people ask their children not to play because they get dizzy if they don’t eat and drink enough. ‘Don’t play’ to a 5-year-old when there is already so much death and destruction.” Imagine asking. ”
Without electricity or gas, families living in temporary camps across Gaza are enduring frigid temperatures that can pose serious risks to their lives.
Last month, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), said people in Gaza were being forced to burn plastic trash as a last resort to survive the cold.
The latest developments come as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a cease-fire agreement was “closer than ever”.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in an unusual joint statement released Friday after talks in Cairo that “the chances of reaching an agreement are closer than ever if our enemies stop imposing new conditions. “
Hamas leaders told Agence France-Presse on Saturday that negotiations had made “significant and significant progress” in recent days.
In an interview with Israeli radio station 103fm on Monday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the country needed “a big deal that doesn’t include surrender to Hamas” in the Gaza Strip. “We believe that the surrender agreement undermines the great war gains and harms us,” said the leader of the ultranationalist Religious Zionist Party.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also suggested on Monday that a cease-fire deal that would include the return of Israeli hostages held in Gaza was imminent.
“Everything we are doing cannot be made public,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers. “We are taking action to get them back. I would be cautious to say that we have made some progress, but we will not stop until we bring everyone home.”
The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. There are still about 100 hostages in Gaza, and at least a third of them are thought to have died.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 45,200 Palestinians in Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Thousands more people are believed to be buried under rubble and tens of thousands more injured.
The Israeli military said, without providing evidence, that it had killed more than 17,000 militants.
Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.
