By Abdul Adil
[AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, The Muslim News]
GAZA
At least 48 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of deaths since October of last year to 45,484, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Saturday.
According to a ministry statement, approximately 108,090 people have also been injured during the ongoing genocidal attacks.
“Israeli forces killed 48 people and injured 52 others in two massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
The commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that children in Gaza are freezing to death due to the cold weather and a severe lack of shelter.
“Gaza babies are freezing to death due to cold weather and a lack of shelter,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a post on X late Friday.
“Blankets, mattresses, and other winter supplies have been stuck in the region for months waiting for approval to get into Gaza,” he said, referring to Israel’s inhumane blockade of the coastal enclave, which launched a genocidal war in the first week of October last year.
The UN official reiterated his call for an immediate cease-fire, urging “an immediate flow of much-needed basic supplies, including for winter.”
At least 11 Palestinians were killed and scores more injured early Saturday in Israeli airstrikes on civilians in northern Gaza, a house in the central part of the coastal strip, and displaced people’s tents in Khan Younis, with the death toll feared to rise.
Medical sources told Anadolu that an Israeli strike on a group of civilians in Sarari Street in Jabalia, northern Gaza, killed two Palestinians and injured several others.
Nine more Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Naami family’s home in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, medical sources also confirmed.
In another attack in southern Gaza, Israeli drones targeted displaced people’s tents in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, causing multiple casualties. Shelling also struck areas east of Khan Younis and northwest of Rafah.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army has intensified its demolition of buildings and residential blocks in Rafah and northern Gaza, leaving behind widespread devastation.
Separately, the Palestinian Civil Defense on Saturday condemned the arrest of its northern Gaza director, Ahmed Hassan Al-Kahlout, by Israeli forces late Friday.
In a statement, the Civil Defense described the arrest as part of “Israel’s deliberate targeting of humanitarian and relief operations.”
Israeli forces hit a house in Beit Hanoon, killing 10 Palestinians of the same family.
Right now, the Israeli forces issued another warning to Palestinians in Beit Hanoon, telling them to leave. This new evacuation order is for northern Gaza.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza warned on Saturday about dire conditions faced by patients forcibly evacuated under Israeli military orders from Kamal Adwan Hospital to the Indonesian Hospital, which had already suffered severe damage from earlier Israeli airstrikes.
In a statement, the ministry said: “A harrowing night has passed for the forcibly evacuated patients, who are now in critical conditions at the Indonesian Hospital without access to water, electricity, food, or medical supplies.”
The ministry emphasized that “the countdown to losing their lives has begun, as most of the Kamal Adwan medical staff have been detained by Israeli forces.”
It noted that the Israeli army had destroyed the Indonesian Hospital’s infrastructure before forcing the transfer of patients there.
The Health Ministry called on international organizations to intervene urgently to address the patients’ critical needs.
On Friday, Israeli forces removed patients and medical staff from Kamal Adwan Hospital at gunpoint and transferred them to the damaged Indonesian Hospital.
The attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital resulted in the loss of the last fully functioning medical facility in northern Gaza.
The Palestinian Health Ministry announced that Israeli forces arrested Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, and other staffers on Saturday, one day after Israeli troops set fire to the area’s only major health care facility.
The arrest came after an Israeli military offensive targeting the Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surroundings.
Israeli troops forcibly evacuated patients and medical personnel from the hospital on Friday, and several were detained before setting fire to its large sections, rendering it completely inoperable, according to a ministry statement.
The Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, denied Israeli claims Friday about the presence of its fighters inside a hospital that was raided by Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahia on Friday, burning large sections and forcing patients and displaced civilians to flee.
The army claimed that the raid on the medical facility was to target Hamas fighters inside the hospital.
“We categorically deny the presence of the resistance fighters in the hospital, which was open to everyone, including international and UN agencies,” Hamas said in a statement.
The group said the Israeli claims aim “to justify the heinous crime committed by the occupation army by evacuating and burning all sections of the hospital as part of its plan of genocide and forced displacement.”
Hamas urged the UN to form an investigation panel to look into Israeli crimes in northern Gaza, “which is witnessing a fully-fledged plan of extermination and displacement.”
Israel has continued a large-scale ground offensive in northern Gaza since Oct. 5 to allegedly prevent Hamas from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.
No sufficient humanitarian aid including food, medicine and fuel has since been allowed into the area, leaving the remaining population on the verge of imminent famine.
Some of the hundreds of detainees taken by Israel during its raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital have been released, but the fate of director Hussam Abu Safia remains unknown, the Gaza Health Ministry says.
The detainees described being beaten, spit on, stripped and left in the cold for hours as they were held and interrogated.
A fire ignited by Israel’s direct attacks has caused “significant destruction to the vast majority” of Kamal Adwan’s wards, Al Jazeera correspondent reports, after a raid described as “barbaric” by local authorities.
The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said Israel’s “systematic dismantling” of Gaza’s health system is a “death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians”.
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called for the “immediate flow” of humanitarian aid as babies freeze to death in Gaza.
WAFA correspondent reported that the Israeli forces targeted a house belonging to the Al-Zaanin family in Beit Hanoun, resulting in the murder of ten civilians and leaving others wounded.
The attack has caused significant devastation in the area, contributing to the rising toll of civilian casualties across Gaza.
Meanwhile, in Gaza City, two more Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces struck a motorcycle near the Al-Muzanir Junction on Al-Shifa Street.
Six Palestinians were killed, including a young girl, and several others injured today in separate Israeli airstrikes that targeted a group of citizens west of Gaza City and a home in the town of Beit Lahiya.
In Beit Lahiya, located in the northern Gaza Strip, four Palestinians, including a young girl, were killed when an Israeli airstrike targeted a home in the area. Several others were wounded in the attack.
WEST BANK
The Wafa news agency reports that a special team of Israeli forces “kidnapped” a young man from al-Quds Street in the eastern area of the occupied West Bank city.
Security sources quoted by Wafa named the man as Hisham Duweikat.
Illegal Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers working their lands in Silwad, east of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
Video footage captured by local media shows farmers with bloody wounds on their heads and faces after having been beaten. The settlers also smashed the windows of a vehicle belonging to a Palestinian resident.
Three Palestinians were injured and one was arrested, according to the Wafa news agency. Silwad Mayor Raed Nimer told the outlet that the settlers came from an outpost erected less than a month ago in the al-Burj area.
Israeli settlers have ramped up their attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, often under the protection of Israeli soldiers, since the Hamas-led attacks on October 2023.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice said earlier this year that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.
Three Palestinians were injured and another was detained on Saturday in an attack by settlers and the Israeli occupation army on the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah.
Silwad Mayor Raed Nimer Hamed said that a group of armed settlers, under the protection of the occupation army, stormed the town from a illegal settler outpost that has been established for 20 days in the Al-Burj area to the west, and attacked local citizens and severely beat them.
YEMEN
An injured staff member of the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) was safely evacuated from Yemen on Friday following an attack on the Sana’a airport, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Today we managed to evacuate our WFP (World Food Programme) UNHAS colleague who was injured in yesterday’s attack on Sana’a airport in Yemen. We are now in Jordan, where he will receive further medical treatment,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
The victim was part of a UN mission negotiating the release of detained colleagues in Yemen. Tedros expressed gratitude to the UNHAS team for their rapid response and commitment under challenging circumstances.
“Deepest gratitude to the UNHAS team for their service and swift evacuation from Yemen, where we were on a UN mission to negotiate for the release of detained colleagues. Attacks on civilians and humanitarians must stop, everywhere,” he emphasized.
Al Masirah TV, a network close to the Yemeni Houthi [Ansar Allah] movement, says “an American-British aggression” targeted the Midi area of the Hajjah governorate in the northwest of the country.
The report said there were two attacks.
The US, UK and Israel have been carrying out heavy attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen for months, as the group continues to launch missile and drone attacks against Israel.
[Photo: Israeli forces gather to patrol around the street as Israelis who usurped Palestinian lands in the West Bank, organize provocative tour in Hebron West Bank on December 28, 2024. Photo journalist : Amer Shallodi/AA]
