By BASSEM MROUE and WAFAA SHURAFA
BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza killed 38 people on Friday, Palestinian health officials said, including 13 children from the same extended family.
In northern Gaza, the enclave’s health authorities reported that Israeli forces had raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the area. Israel has renewed its offensive against Hamas in the north in recent weeks, and aid groups are sounding the alarm over dire humanitarian conditions.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes on the country’s southeast killed three journalists working for news outlets that are considered to be aligned with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.
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Israeli strikes kill dozens in Khan Younis
The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 38 people and wounding dozens of others.
The Israeli military, which has said it’s targeting Hamas fighters in the southern town, did not immediately respond to questions about Friday’s attack on several residential buildings. Palestinians said the neighborhood was hit with no warning. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Graphic footage from the Palestinian Civil Defense showed rescuers pulling the bloodied bodies of nine children from the ruins.
Many of the victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis as well as to the European Hospital, where records showed at least 15 members of the al-Farra family had been killed. Six members of the Abdeen family were also killed, health officials reported.
Saleh al-Farra, who lost his 17-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister in the attack, said that shaking from the bombardment and nearby shelling sent his family members running to the middle of the house for shelter. The next thing he knew, he said, he was waking up in the rubble of his home.
“I started screaming and screaming until my brother and father came, and they started trying to get me out,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about anyone.”
Israeli forces intensify operations around northern Gaza hospital
In response to reports that it had stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said on Friday that it was “operating in the area” of the hospital based on intelligence that indicated the presence of fighters and combatant infrastructure.
The pediatric hospital is one of the area’s three medical facilities to remain partially operational after more than a year of war. Since Israeli forces renewed their assault against Hamas fighters in northern Gaza weeks ago, staff at the three hospitals have warned that dire shortages of food, medicine and other supplies had created a humanitarian emergency.
The World Health Organization said it had lost touch with staff at Kamal Adwan, calling the reports of an Israeli military raid at the medical center “deeply disturbing.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X on Friday that Kamal Adwan has been flooded with some 200 patients a day, most of them “horrific trauma cases.” The facility is also packed with displaced families seeking shelter.
“Accessing hospitals across Gaza is getting unbelievably harder and exposes our staff to unnecessary danger,” Tedros wrote.
Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safiya could not be reached on Friday, as Gaza’s far north has suffered repeated communication blackouts in recent days. In voice messages sent late Thursday, Abu Safiya claimed that the hospital had come under Israeli tank fire. The Israeli military denied that a tank had fired at the hospital.
Telling of the hospital’s calamitous conditions as Israeli forces close in, Abu Safiya also said several of his patients had already died due to lack of supplies and medication.
The United Nations has said hundreds of thousands of people have been trapped in northern Gaza with little food or supplies as Israeli forces surround the town of Jabaliya. The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, said Friday that the Israeli government’s actions in northern Gaza “risk emptying the area of all Palestinians.”
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged another 250 back into Gaza — many hospitals in Gaza have come under attack. The Israeli military accuses Hamas fighters of using them as bases. Hamas and Palestinian doctors have repeatedly denied that claim.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israel’s strikes on Lebanon kill 3 journalists
Thick dust churned up by heavy airstrikes covered a row of cars marked “PRESS” in southeast Lebanon on Friday after a strike on an area that had been spared the brunt of Israel’s bombardment and invasion. The strikes brought down buildings that had been rented by several media outlets.
The Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers — camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida — were among the journalists killed early Friday. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was also killed in the airstrike.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike. Lebanon’s Health Minister said Friday that 11 journalists have been killed and eight wounded since Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group began trading cross-border fire in October 2023.
On Friday, at least two people in northern Israel were killed by shrapnel during a rocket barrage from Lebanon, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service. The rockets struck in Majd Al-Krum, an Arab town in the country’s north, hitting a gym. Six others were injured, the rescue services added, including an 80-year-old man who remained in serious condition.
Israel’s military announced Friday that three more soldiers were killed in Gaza this week, without providing details. That brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since the start of its ground invasion to 359.
Shurafa reported from Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press journalists Mohammed Zaatari in Hasbaya, Lebanon and Adam Schreck in Jerusalem contributed reporting.
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