Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 38 Palestinians this Wednesday (11). Most of the deaths occurred in a shooting at a building in Beit Lahiya, in the far north of the enclave, doctors said.
The attack killed at least 22 people, including women and children, health officials said. Relatives listed the names of the dead on social media.
More than 30 people lived in the multi-story building before it was hit. Several family members were missing as rescue operations continued throughout the morning, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The Israeli army told Reuters it carried out an attack against Hamas militants near the Kamal Adwan Hospital, located between Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, towns in northern Gaza under Israeli siege for two months.
The military said it was examining the information, but described the number of fatalities reported by doctors and Palestinian media as “inaccurate” and at odds with army information.
In nearby Beit Hanoun, also part of the besieged area, doctors said an Israeli airstrike left several dead and injured, without giving an exact number of casualties. Rescuers said several people were trapped under the rubble.
Earlier on Wednesday (11), at least seven Palestinians were killed and several others were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, doctors told Reuters.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service and medics said nine other people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes on two homes and a crowd in Gaza City, including journalist Eman Al-Shanti, her husband and three of the couple’s children.
Al-Shanti was the 193rd journalist killed by Israel since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, the Palestinian Union of Journalists said.
Hamas commanders killed in attacks
In a statement, the Israeli army said it killed in separate airstrikes two armed Hamas commanders who took a leading role in the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel that triggered the war.
The report said one of the two, Fahmi Selmi, was a senior commander of the elite Hamas unit that was said to have been operating from inside a former school in the Gaza City suburb of Zeitoun at the time of the airstrike, the timing of which was not disclosed.
The military said the second man, Salah Dahman, who served as head of the Hamas paragliding unit in the Jabalia area, was killed in an airstrike last week.
Earlier on Wednesday (11), the Israeli army said two rockets were fired from the center of the Gaza Strip into Israel, but landed in open areas and caused no injuries.
The shots demonstrated the Palestinian group’s ability to continue carrying out rocket attacks despite 14 months of devastating Israeli air and ground offensives.
Citing rocket fire from the area, the Israeli army ordered residents of the Al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza to leave. He urged them to move toward a designated humanitarian zone near the Mediterranean coast.
Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe areas in the largely devastated territory. Israel says harm to civilians is a consequence of Hamas members hiding among them, an accusation the Palestinian group denies.
Fighting has focused on the densely urbanized north, where Israeli armored forces have been operating in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia since October 5.
Israel says it is fighting to prevent Hamas members from regrouping and resuming attacks in these areas. Palestinian officials and residents accuse Israel of trying to depopulate the area to create a protection zone along the northern tip of the coastal territory, which Israel denies.
Israel and Hamas have been at war since Hamas carried out a lightning raid on Israel’s southwestern border on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli counts.
The attack triggered Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 44,800 Palestinians and displaced most of the population of 2.3 million, according to Gaza health officials.
This content was originally published in Israeli airstrikes kill at least 38 Palestinians in Gaza on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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