Gaza: 99 Palestinians killed, 766 injured by indiscriminate bombings last 48hours
By Abdul Adil
(The Muslim News): 99 Palestinian were killed and 766 injured by indiscriminate bombings by Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours, reports Ministry of Health. This brings to total number of Palestinians killed since 7 October 2023 to 36,050 and 81,026 were injured in Gaza Strip, according to MoH in Gaza.
Israeli bombardment from the air, land, and sea continues to be reported across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure. Ground incursions and heavy fighting also continue to be reported, including in Jabaliya, south of Gaza city, northern An Nuseirat, eastern Deir al Balah, and eastern and central Rafah. Following the intensification of hostilities and issuance of evacuation orders in Rafah and northern Gaza, between 6 and 26 May, more than 945,000 people have been displaced from Rafah and 100,000 in northern Gaza.
The Kuwaiti Hospital, one of Rafah’s two remaining hospitals, has been shut down due to Israeli attacks, its director said in a statement. This comes after two hospital medical staff were killed earlier by Israeli shelling.
Israeli forces have bombed a tent camp housing displaced people in a designated safe zone in Rafah, killing 45 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The attack has triggered an international outcry, leading to calls for a ceasefire.
Israel’s top military prosecutor described the Rafah attack as “very grave” and said an investigation is under way. Earlier, the Israeli military confirmed the attack, saying it targeted Hamas fighters.
As Israeli missiles struck the camp at night, a fire spread rapidly, razing the encampment to the ground and killing at least 45 people, according to Gaza officials.
When Dr Muhammad al-Mughayer from the Palestinian Civil Defence arrived at the scene, the fires were still burning.
“The fires were very big, and they were spreading all over the place,” al-Mughayer told Al Jazeera.
Most of those who were killed had severe burns on their bodies, he added.
As al-Mughayer’s team worked to rescue survivors and retrieve bodies, they encountered charred remains and people whose limbs had been blown off.
The attack occurred near the logistics base of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in Tal al-Sultan, said the Gaza Media Office.
Israeli aircraft targeted several tents in the area, the media office said, adding that missiles and 2,000-pound bombs were used.
Earlier, Gaza’s civil defense force said it transported 50 people, including dead and injured, after the bombing. The targeted area sheltered at least 100,000 displaced people, it said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society in a brief statement said its ambulance crews were moving the victims to nearby medical centers.
The attack led to fires engulfing the area, which are still raging, according to witnesses.
“We retrieved a large number of child martyrs from the Israeli bombardment, including a child without a head and children whose bodies have turned into fragments,” a Palestinian paramedic told Anadolu Agency.
“The Rafah massacre is a clear message from Israel to the ICJ and the international community that attacks against civilians in Gaza continue,” said the media office in its statement, referring to the International Court of Justice.
The office further noted that at least 190 Palestinians had been killed and injured in the last 24 hours due to the Israeli army’s targeting of more than 10 shelters for displaced people in the Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned Israel’s deadly airstrike on a camp of displaced people in Rafah city, southern Gaza Strip.
“I condemn Israel’s actions which killed scores of innocent civilians who were only seeking shelter from this deadly conflict” Guterres wrote on X.
The UN chief emphasized that there is “no safe place in Gaza” and urged an end to “this horror.”
At least 45 people, mostly women and children, were killed and nearly 250 others injured in an Israeli strike on a camp for displaced people in Rafah on Sunday.
The attack occurred near the logistics base of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Tal al-A (AA) – The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Monday that two on-duty health workers at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah city, southern Gaza Strip, were killed by Israeli forces.
In a statement, the Gaza Health Ministry described the Israeli army’s attack on on-duty health workers as a “heinous crime” that confirms Tel Aviv’s intention to destroy the health system in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called the death of dozens of Palestinian civilians in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip a “tragic mishap.”
Speaking at the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), Netanyahu claimed that the civilian deaths occurred as Israeli forces targeted Hamas members in Rafah.
“Despite our efforts not to hurt them, there was a tragic mishap. We are investigating the incident,” Netanyahu claimed.
The Israeli premier vowed to continue the war on Gaza despite international outcry.
“I don’t intend to end the war before every goal has been achieved,” he said.
African Union Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat condemned Sudan’s Israeli airstrikes on a refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians, primarily women and children.
“With horrific overnight airstrikes killing mostly Palestinian women and children trapped in a displacement camp in Rafah, the State of Israel continues to violate international law with impunity,” Mahamat said in a statement.
“The ICJ order must be urgently enforced if global order is to prevail. Ceasefire now,” Mahamat added.
He emphasized that the actions by Israel display a blatant contempt for a recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, which ordered Israel to cease its military operations in Rafah.
Ireland’s prime minister on Monday described the Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah as “horrific,” and “despicable.”
“The idea that anybody would bomb a displaced persons center, a center in which people are told to go to stay safe … is horrific,” Simon Harris told the broadcaster Virgin Media News.
This attack also raises “extraordinarily serious questions” about international law, he added.
Harris reiterated his call “to the rest of the European countries … in terms of using all of the levers at our disposal to help bring about a cease-fire.”
The prime minister recalled that Ireland signed a letter “calling for review of the Association Agreement, effectively the trade agreement, between the EU and Israel.”
Meanwhile, seven civilians were killed and six others were injured tonight in Israeli airstrikes targeting a house north of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
Local sources reported that ambulance and rescue crews recovered the bodies of seven people and six wounded from under the rubble of a house destroyed by an Israeli raid in the ‘Oraiba area, north of Rafah.
In another incident Kuwait Specialized Hospital in Rafah also announced the killing of two of its staff in an Israeli drone attack.
The hospital identified the two staff as Rashid Barhoum, 23, and Musab al-Arja 22.
In a related context, the hospital administration announced that it went out of service due to the expansion of the occupation’s aggression in Rafah Governorate and the repeated and deliberate attacks on the hospital’s surroundings.
It said the most recent attack was the targeting of the hospital gate, which led to the killing of two staff members, in addition to the injury of five medical staff in a previous targeting.
The hospital administration added that the medical teams will be transferred to the field hospital, which is being prepared in the Al-Mawasi area, on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip.
During the last hours, Rafah was subjected to a series of violent air raids and intense artillery shelling targeting the center and eastern part of the governorate, coinciding with the Israeli occupation forces’ bombardment of several homes and facilities.
Meanwhile, the Israeli airforce launched raids on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Strip, leaving several people killed and injured.
The attacks coincided with the Israeli artillery shelling of the eastern part of the Bureij refugee camp, in the middle of the Gaza Strip.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital announced that the Israeli occupation continues to prevent the supply of fuel to the hospital, warning that its health services will stop during the next few hours.
A Palestinian was also killed and others were injured in an Israeli raid that targeted a house on Old Gaza Street in the northern Gaza Strip, coinciding with violent artillery shelling on the al-Zeitoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.
Scores of civilians today were killed and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike near the Ain al-Jalut towers, south of Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip.
Medical sources reported that Israeli warplanes targeted a group of civilians near Ain al-Jalut towers, causing causalities among civilians, including the two brothers Ahmed, 17, and Ismail Abu al-Lail, 15, while they were trying to obtain drinking water for their family.
Seven civilians were killed and six others were injured tonight in Israeli airstrikes targeting a house north of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
Local sources reported that ambulance and rescue crews recovered the bodies of seven people and six wounded from under the rubble of a house destroyed by an Israeli raid in the ‘Oraiba area, north of Rafah.
Four Palestinians were Monday morning killed and others were injured in a bombing by Israeli air force west of Gaza City, south of the Gaza Strip.
Eyewitnesses said that the air force bombed a house owned by Dahliz family, west of the city of Rafah, killing four citizens and wounding others.
According to the Israeli government, 1,139 Israelis were killed by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel, and 134 Israelis and foreign nationals are still detained by Hamas in Gaza.
[Photo: Palestinian young boy injured placed in a lorry, injured in Israel’s attack on Nuseirat Refugee Camp brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza on 27 05 2024. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra/ AA]
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