(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa): With 61 more Palestinians killed and 231 others injured in four Israeli indiscriminate attacks on the Gaza Strip in ther last 24 hours, the death toll since October of last year has reached 42,126, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Friday. According to a ministry statement, the ongoing assault injured about 98,117 people. “Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
Israeli attacks continue in Gaza, with a number of people, including an infant, killed in Jabalia and Deir el-Balah.
20 people have been killed in Jabalia.
A huge explosion created a hole. We’re talking at least 20 meters (about 65 feet) deep in the ground as multiple strikes targeted a multi-story building, reports Al Jazeera.
They also caused severe damage to the surrounding residential buildings.
Eyewitnesses described a strong earthquake that hit that area. They could feel the foundations of the building shaking.
The situation and the scene from the bomb site are horrific.
There is no proper machinery. People use manually operated tools to remove pieces of concrete, operating in the dark under rubble.
One family sheltering inside the building was killed.
In Jabalia, for the seventh day in a row, the Israeli military is pushing deeper and surrounding and encircling and posing a military siege.
Thousands of Palestinians are trapped in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, where the Israeli offensive has continued for the past six days, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Friday.
In a statement on X, MSF said while the Israeli army is demanding Palestinians to leave their areas in Jabalia, it is “carrying out attacks at the same time, preventing people from leaving the area safely.”
“Forced evacuations of homes and bombing of neighbourhoods by the Israeli forces is turning north Gaza into uninhabitable ruins,” it added.
Israeli aerial and artillery bombardment Friday killed 10 Palestinian civilians and injured others in the northern and central war-torn Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondents.
They said that paramedics and rescue teams retrieved the bodies of four members of the Nabhan family from the rubble in Bii Na‘ja locality, west of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Strip, following an Israeli airstrike that targeted the locality. Their bodies were transported to the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Meanwhile, Israeli fighter jets conducted an airstrike against a house in the Sabra neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, killing three civilians and injuring others.
In the meantime, an Israeli bombing targeted an apartment in a residential building belonging to the al-Bayumi family in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Strip, killing two children and injuring others.
This brings the total death toll in the Strip since Friday dawn to 34 Palestinian civilians, including 15 in the Jabalia camp, according to medical sources.
At least four Palestinians, including three children, were killed on Friday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in the southwestern part of Gaza City, a medical source said.
The home belonged to the al-Daya family, the source told Anadolu on condition of anonymity.
Earlier, a Palestinian woman was killed and 15 others were injured as the Israeli army targeted two schools sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza, which remained under siege and an ongoing Israeli military operation for six consecutive days.
Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza released a statement earlier confirming the death of a Palestinian woman and the injury of four others due to Israeli attacks on the Hafsa School, which serves as a shelter for displaced civilians.
In a separate incident, Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that dozens of Palestinians were injured by Israeli quadcopter drone fire at the Al-Fawqa School, another shelter for displaced families in the Jabalia refugee camp.
The Civil Defense added that rescue teams are still working to evacuate the injured following the Israeli strikes.
On Monday, the Israeli military warned Palestinians to evacuate their homes in Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia and move south, while Gaza’s Interior Ministry and National Security cautioned citizens against complying with these orders, calling them “deception and lies.”
A Palestinian woman was killed and 15 others were injured on Friday as the Israeli army targeted two schools sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza, which remained under siege and an ongoing Israeli military operation for the past sixth consecutive days.
Al-Awda Hospital released a statement confirming the death of a Palestinian woman and the injury of four others due to Israeli attacks on the Hafsa School, which serves as a shelter for displaced civilians.
In a separate incident, Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that dozens of Palestinians were injured by Israeli Quadcopter drone fire at the Al-Fawqa School, another shelter for displaced families in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Meanwhile in occupied West Bank, the Israeli army prevented Palestinians in Hebron, in the southern West Bank, from performing weekly Friday prayers and continued to close the Ibrahimi Mosque to Muslim faithfuls, leaving it open only to illegal Israeli settlers for the third consecutive day.
“Israeli soldiers prevented us from entering the mosque to perform Friday prayers, so we prayed at one of the surrounding checkpoints,” Hebron Endowments Director Ghassan Al-Rajabi told Anadolu.
“Around a thousand Palestinians performed Friday prayers at a closed military checkpoint west of the mosque,” he added.
According to Al-Rajabi, dozens of Palestinians were denied entry to the mosque on Friday morning, forcing them to offer prayers at the checkpoints surrounding it.
He explained that Israeli authorities have closed the mosque for four days, citing Jewish holidays, and that the closure was expected to end on Saturday evening.
Al-Rajabi accused Israel of trying to “alter the Palestinian demographic around the mosque, increase illegal Israeli settlers’ presence, and simultaneously prevent the call to prayer (Adhan) and prayers.”
LEBANON
At least 11 people were killed on Friday in Israeli airstrikes targeting residential areas in towns in southern and eastern Lebanon.
Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,351 people, injuring over 3,800 others, and displacing more than 1.2 million people.
The Lebanese official news agency reported that four Lebanese people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the southern town of Jebchit in the Nabatieh region.
At least five people were killed and two others wounded in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel region, the agency added.
In the city of Tyre, a woman died from injuries sustained days earlier in an Israeli airstrike on her home, according to the National News Agency.
Details about the exact date and circumstances of the strike were not provided by the news agency in its report.
Israeli warplanes also carried out airstrikes targeting the towns of Tebnine and Borj Qalaouiye in the Bint Jbeil district of Nabatieh, injuring several people.
Separately, Lebanese Civil Defense teams on Friday recovered a body from the rubble in the town of Rayak, in the eastern Bekaa region following an Israeli airstrike on Thursday.
According to a statement from the General Directorate of Civil Defense, teams have been conducting search and rescue operations since Thursday evening through Friday morning.
Besides southern and eastern Lebanon, Israel has also been intensifying its air raids on the capital Beirut.
On Friday morning, Israeli warplanes struck the town of Zrariyeh in Sidon district, also bombed a house in the village of Tair Harfa, south of Tyre, according to the agency.
This comes a day after Israeli fighter jets carried out two strikes on Beirut, killing 22 people and wounding 117, according to preliminary figures from the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The Lebanese army said on Friday that two of its troops were killed and three others were injured due to Israeli shelling targeting a military center in the town of Kafra in the Bent Jbeil district of southern Lebanon.
In a post on X, the Lebanese army said: “The Israeli enemy targeted an army center in the town of Kafra in the south, resulting in two martyrs and three wounded.”
Condemning the Israeli shelling, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the international community to put an end to Israel’s aggression on Lebanon.
UK refused to condemn the attacks by Israel on UNIFIL troops. A Spokesman for Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said PM was “appalled” about Israel deliberately firing on UNIFIL.
The Spanish government on Friday strongly condemned Israel for launching a second attack in two days on the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), stationed near the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura.
A statement from the Spanish Foreign Ministry reiterated the country’s opposition to such attacks, saying: “The government strongly condemns Israel’s new assault on the UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura, which has caused further injuries among peacekeeping personnel.”
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon on Friday described the Israeli shelling of its headquarters in the country’s south a “serious development.”
Israeli forces early Friday shelled an observation post belonging to UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at its headquarters in Naqoura, southern Lebanon, wounding two peacekeepers from the Sri Lankan contingent, Lebanon’s state National News Agency said.
Two peacekeepers were injured in a similar attack on Thursday.
“This morning, UNIFIL’s Naqoura headquarters (in southern Lebanon) was affected by explosions for the second time in the last 48 hours,” it said in a statement.
UNIFIL reiterated that the “safety and security of UN personnel and property must be guaranteed and that the inviolability of UN premises must be respected at all times.”
“Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and Security Council resolution 1701 (2006),” it added.
In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 people were taken captive..
[Photo: A Lebanese woman inspects her demolished home by an Israeli airstrike – Nowayri area of Beirut, Lebanon on 11 10, 2024.
Photojournalist: Murat Şengül/ AA]
