Israeli strikes kill 38 in south Gaza, as medics say troops raid hospital in north
SMA NEWS – GAZA
At least 38 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in southern Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says, as Israeli troops reportedly raided one of the last functioning hospitals in the north of the territory.
Rescue workers said nine children from one family were among those killed near the southern city of Khan Younis.
The ministry and medics also said Israeli troops had ordered patients and staff to leave Kamal Adwan hospital in the northern town of Beit Lahia, close to the besieged Jabalia area.
The Israeli military said it was checking the reports from Khan Younis and that forces were operating “in the area” of Kamal Adwan based on intelligence “regarding the presence of terrorists”.
Meanwhile, Jordan’s foreign minister warned that Israel was carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed and tens of thousands displaced in recent weeks.
At least two residential buildings in the south-eastern al-Manara neighborhood of Khan Younis were hit by Israeli air strikes around dawn on Friday, according to a spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.
Fourteen people, including nine children, were killed when the home of the al-Fara family was hit, while six other people were killed in a second strike on a nearby home, Mahmoud Bassal said.
“The rocket fell next to us, and we were buried under the rubble. My children and sister were killed,” Umm al-Ameer al-Fara who survived told AFP news agency.
Ihsan al-Fara said her five-year-old son Issa was killed and that there had only been women and children in the house.
The Civil Defence posted a video that it said showed its rescue workers recovering the bodies of the children from the al-Faras’ home. The same children were also later photographed in body bags at the nearby European Gaza hospital.
Reuters news agency also said the bodies of another three children were brought to Nasser hospital, in Khan Younis.
The Gaza health ministry said a total of 38 people were killed in what it condemned as “several massacres” by the Israeli military.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, but on Friday morning it put out a statement saying that it had “eliminated several terrorists from the air and the ground and dismantled numerous terrorist infrastructures” over the past day.
