By Nadine Osman
(The Muslim News): Gaza’s death toll has risen to 1,055 after the Israeli army continued to strike hundreds of residential and commercial targets, the Health Ministry announced this morning.
Among the dead are at least 260 Palestinian children and 200 women. Airstrikes have targeted at least 40 media outlets. Eight journalists have also been killed with two others missing and feared dead. A further 5,000 Palestinians have been injured.
Yesterday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced that Israeli airstrikes had displaced more than 260,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Fears are mounting that the number of displaced Palestinians in Gaza will increase amid continuing Israeli attacks and Hamas rocket fire.
The Palestinian Hamas group launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel early Saturday, firing a barrage of rockets and infiltrating Israel by land, air, and sea. It said the surprise attack was in response to the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and increased settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Number of Israelis killed increased to 1,200 as more bodies have been recovered and 2,700 injured, including women and children, in the Hamas attacks.
Israeli army Tuesday said 1,500 bodies of Hamas fighters were found in Israel.
In retaliation, the Israeli military launched Operation Swords of Iron against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Civil Defence has said that with the bombing continuing and many Palestinians still trapped under the rubble, the number of Palestinian fatalities is likely to substantially rise.
The army fired missiles at homes and buildings in the Al-Atatra area in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, and a home in Bani Soheila town, east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza. Israeli missiles killed nineteen Palestinians in Khan Younis.
Israel has also cut water and electricity and food supplies to Gaza, inevitably worsening the already dire humanitarian situation.
Home to nearly 2.2 million people, the Gaza Strip has already been reeling under a crippling Israeli siege since 2007.
Meanwhile, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said late Tuesday that more than 175,000 people in Gaza have taken refuge in 88 of its schools.
The UN agency said: “88 of our schools in the Gaza Strip have turned into shelters for more than 175,000 people.”
The agency said that the number of displaced are rapidly increasing due to the continued Israeli airstrikes.
[Photo: Aerial view of destroyed buildings & debris at Al-Karama neighborhood after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, Gaza on 11 10 23.
Photo: Stringer/ AA]
