Palestinians mourn over the bodies of their relatives who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Shijaiyah neighborhood, as they brought to the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. AP
The Al-Ahly hospital said at least 23 people were killed in the strike, including eight women and eight children. The Health Ministry confirmed the figures.
The strike hit a four-story building in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City, and rescue teams were searching for victims under the rubble, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. The civil defense said other neighboring buildings were damaged in the strike.
Israel has issued sweeping evacuation orders for parts of Gaza, including Shijaiyah. It imposed a blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle. It has pledged to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor through it.
The UN said the Israeli military has denied aid workers permission for more than two-thirds of 170 attempts to move humanitarian supplies within the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire ended. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said efforts to get dwindling aid supplies to Palestinians were “severely strained.”
Earlier this week, Hamas fired a volley of rockets, lobbing 10 projectiles toward southern Israel.
Israel resumed its war on Gaza last month after an eight-week ceasefire collapsed. The ceasefire brought a much-needed reprieve from the fighting to war-weary Palestinians in Gaza and sent an infusion of humanitarian aid to the territory.
Mediators have since attempted to bring the sides to a bridging agreement that would again pause the war, free captives and open the door for talks on the war's end, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he won't agree to until Hamas is defeated.
The Israeli war has ignited a humanitarian crisis in already impoverished Gaza and has sent shockwaves across the region and beyond.
Netanyahu traveled to Washington this week to meet with President Donald Trump. In their public statements, they offered sympathy for the plight of the hostages but shed little light on any emerging deal to suspend the fighting.
Trump has said he wants the war to end. But his postwar vision for Gaza — taking it over and expelling its population — has stunned Middle East allies, who say any talk of transferring the Palestinian population, by force or voluntarily, is a nonstarter. Israel has embraced the idea.
The Israeli war on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry there, more than half of the dead are women and children.
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