More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes, rescuers and hospital officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel’s ongoing offensive is creating “massive obstacles” to the distribution of humanitarian aid.
Also Saturday, the Israeli military said troops arrested hundreds of alleged militants in Gaza over the past week and transferred more than 200 of them to Israel for further interrogation, providing rare details on a controversial policy of mass roundups of Palestinian men. The army said more than 700 people with alleged ties to the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have so far been sent to Israeli lockups.
On Friday, airstrikes flattened two homes, one in Gaza City and the other in the urban refugee camp of Nuseirat in the center of the territory.
The Gaza City strike killed 76 people from the al-Mughrabi family, making it one of the deadliest of the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense department. He provided the names of 16 heads of households within the family, and said the dead included women and children.
Among those killed were Issam al-Mughrabi, a veteran employee of U.N. Development Program, his wife, and their five children.
“The loss of Issam and his family has deeply affected us all. The U.N. and civilians in Gaza are not a target,” said Achim Steiner, the head of the agency. “This war must end.”
Later Friday, a strike pulverized the Nuseirat home of Mohammed Khalifa, a local TV journalist, killing him and at least 14 others, according to officials at the nearby Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital where the bodies were taken. Mourners held funeral prayers Saturday in the hospital’s courtyard while rescue teams continued to search for survivors. The legs of at least two bodies were seen under what appeared to be a collapsed roof.
Director of UNRWA affairs Thomas White has said that more than 150,000 people are impacted due to Israel’s latest evacuation orders for people in central Gaza to move to Deir al-Balah, “to expand ongoing military operation”.
He wrote on X the area is “already overwhelmed with displaced including UNRWA shelters”.
“The Israeli army just orders people to move into areas where there are ongoing air strikes. No place is safe, nowhere to go”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said after Israel’s latest evacuation order for civilians in the central Gaza Strip, AFP reports.
“People in Gaza are people. They are not pieces on a checkerboard — many have already been displaced several times,” Thomas White, Gaza director for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, wrote on social media.
Israeli forces are trying to advance into the city of Jabalia from the west and east, and have disrupted all lines of communication in the region, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent.
The correspondent also said there was heavy Israeli bombing on the al-Jarn area in Jabalia.
“All day yesterday and overnight, there were more relentless air attacks in the Gaza Strip – mainly refugee camps – that concentrated on the central part,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said.
“Once again, people are saying this narrative about designated safe areas (in Gaza) is contradictory, vague and confusing for them.”—Agencies
