The Generation, Year: 1, Issue: 12
Israeli troops were “expanding” their operation in the Gaza Strip Monday, as Qatari mediators said they were inching closer to a deal to free some of the 240 hostages held by Hamas.
A Hamas health official said more than 80 people were killed in twin strikes on Jabalia on Saturday, including on a UN school sheltering displaced people. Social media videos verified by AFP showed bodies covered in blood and dust on the floor of a building, where mattresses had been wedged under school tables.
Without mentioning the strikes, the Israeli army said “an incident in the Jabalia region” was under review. UN rights chief Volker Turk on Sunday condemned the purported strike on the school as “horrifying”, adding that “the horrendous events of the past 48 hours in Gaza beggar belief.” On Monday, Palestinian news agency Wafa said the Indonesian hospital near Jabalia had also come under shelling.
Israel launched its offensive against Hamas after a wave of brutal cross-border raids on October 7 left 1,200 people dead, the majority of them civilians. The Hamas government says the death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground operations in Gaza has reached 13,000, thousands of them children. Six weeks into the war, Israel is facing intense international pressure to justify its bloody toll. The World Health Organization has called the hospital a “death zone”. Over the weekend, hundreds of people fled Al-Shifa hospital on foot as loud explosions were heard around the complex. At least 15 bodies, some in advanced stages of decomposition, were strewn along the route, an AFP journalist said.
The WHO on Sunday said it evacuated thirty-one premature babies from the facility. Al-Shifa head of surgery Marwan Abu Sada told AFP that Israeli troops were still in the hospital and it was surrounded by tanks.
Other doctors said the troops were going from building to building and detonated explosives on the ground floors and hospital basements searching for Hamas tunnels. On Sunday, Qatari mediators said they were inching closer to a deal to free some of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
US deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told US media that negotiators were “closer than we have been in quite some time” to securing a deal.
Source: AFP
