Scores more killed in Gaza with no sign of ceasefire in sight

By Linda Bordoni 

Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in northern areas of Nuseirat, after some tanks pulled back from an area they had raided, the others were reportedly killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip.

With over 43,300  people killed in Gaza – most of them women and children - since 7 October 2023, the Israeli military says its forces are continuing to “strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip.”

On Friday some Israeli tanks remained active in the western area of the Nuseirat refugee camp where Palestinian Civil Emergency Service teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped inside their houses.

Among the dead bodies lying on the road with blankets or white shrouds was also that of Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the army has been operating since early October.

Al-Kahlout was killed by a missile fired from the drone as he walked through the hospital gate.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip that are now barely operational due to shortages of medical, fuel, and food supplies. Health officials said most of its medical staff had been either detained or expelled by the Israeli army.

Diplomacy

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities released around 30 Palestinians whom it had detained in the past few months during its Gaza offensive. Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture in Israeli detention after they were released. Israel denies torture.

On the diplomatic front, months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold. Announcing a ceasefire accord for Lebanon this week, the US President Joe Biden said he would renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and he urged Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.

(Source Reuters)