Israel continues to bomb Gaza as war hits 90 days
More than 9,600 children and 6,700 women have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war, which has raged for 90 days, with 45,000 rockets and bombs used in attacks on the enclave since October 7.
The death toll in Gaza has passed 22,300 and more than 57,000 injuries have been recorded, the enclave’s Health Ministry has said.
Israel began its operation in Gaza after Hamas, which governs the strip, killed about 1,200 people and abducted 240 in attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
The Gaza government media office said 1.9 million people have been displaced and 65,000 tonnes of explosives used by Israel, damaging 290,000 homes.
“The sound of clashes and shelling makes you think that it is the end,” Rami Darwish, a resident of Al Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, told The National.
“The Israeli army has stepped up air strikes and artillery shelling in the middle areas of the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli strikes on the southern city of Khan Younis killed 14 members of a single family.
“We fled here because we were looking for a safe place, but there is no safe place,” Khan Younis resident Aziz Abu Hattab told The National.
“We were sleeping when suddenly shelling targeted us and we started running. We don’t know where to go.”
Dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured early on Thursday in Israeli raids on central and southern Gaza, the Health Ministry said.
Israel bombed central Gaza’s Al Maghazi, Al Zawaida and Al Nuseirat camps, as well as Khan Younis.
Paramedic Abed Allah Afanna told The National an Israeli aircraft bombed a block of flats in central Gaza.
“We couldn’t transport the injured due to the severity of the field conditions, as the ambulances were targeted and have been shot, which forced ambulance crew to leave the place without transporting the injured,” said Mr Afanna.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces carried out raids on Thursday, storming Palestinian homes in the city of Tulkarm and its two refugee camps.
“The occupation bulldozers also continue to destroy the streets and alleys of the Tulkarm camp in several neighbourhoods,” the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
Violence broke out between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops on Wednesday when two camps in Tulkarm were raided during large-scale operations in the West Bank.
The Israeli army said that its troops had discovered a tunnel near Hebron.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to begin a tour of the Middle East on Thursday, including a stop in Israel, a senior American official said.