GAZA BLITZED
KIDS AMONG DOZENS DEAD AS VIOLENCE ESCALATES
CITY: Six children are among at least 24 people killed in escalating violence in Gaza as Israel extended its bombardment of Palestinian militants who have retaliated with a barrage of rockets.
The updated count from health authorities in the Hamas Islamist-run territory said the children were among those killed between the start of the “Israeli aggression” on Friday and yesterday, in addition to 204 people injured.
But Israel said it had “irrefutable” evidence that a stray rocket from Islamic Jihad militants had been responsible for the death of multiple children in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on Saturday.
Israel’s military has warned its aerial and artillery campaign against Islamic Jihad could last a week, but Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Cairo is talking “around the clock” with both sides to ease the violence.
Israel has said it was necessary to launch a “preemptive” operation against Islamic Jihad, as the group was planning an imminent attack following days of tensions along the border with Gaza.
Civilians meanwhile took refuge in air raid shelters on the Israeli side, with sirens warning of incoming fire in the Tel Aviv area on Saturday evening.
In Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, women and children were trapped under rubble following an Israeli strike.
Rescue workers were digging through the site where a top Islamic Jihad commander, Khaled Mansour, was reportedly targeted by an Israeli strike on Saturday.
There was no specific confirmation of Mansour’s death, but the head of the Israeli army’s operations directorate, Oded Basiok, said in a statement that the entire “senior leadership of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been neutralised”.
Daily life in the strip has come to a standstill, while the electricity distributor said the sole power station shut down due to a lack of fuel after Israel closed its border crossings.
Gaza’s health ministry warned it risked suspending vital services within 72 hours as a result of the lack of electricity.
In Gaza City, resident Dounia Ismail said Palestinians have become accustomed to preparing a “survival bag” of items such as money and medicine.
“This latest escalation brings back images of fear, anxiety, and the feeling that we are all alone,” she told AFP.
On the Israeli side of the frontier, the Magen David Adom emergency service said two people were hospitalised with shrapnel wounds and 13 others were lightly hurt while running for safety.
In Kibbutz Nahal Oz, an Israeli community beside the Gaza border, resident Nadav Peretz said he has been “in the bomb shelter or around it” since Friday.
“We recognise that on the other side too there is an uninvolved civilian population, and on both sides children deserve to enjoy their summer vacation,” he said.
Islamic Jihad is aligned with Hamas, but often acts independently. Both groups are blacklisted as terrorist organisations by much of the West.
Hamas has fought four wars with Israel since seizing control of Gaza in 2007, including the conflict last May.
A flare-up with Islamic Jihad came in 2019, following Israel’s killing of Baha Abu alAta, Jabari’s predecessor. Hamas did not join the fray in that conflict.
UN humanitarian chief for the occupied Palestinian territories, Lynn Hastings, urged both sides to allow “fuel, food, and medical supplies” to be delivered to Gaza.