At least 15 dead in Israeli attack on refugee camp in central Gaza | Gaza News

Dozens injured in attacks on Bureij and Maghazi, only remaining hospital in area ‘overcrowded’ with patients, health official says.

At least 15 people have been killed in Israeli ground and air strikes on the Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza, a Palestinian health official said.

“More than 15 martyrs and dozens of injured have reached Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in the last few hours,” a Health Ministry spokesman told reporters outside the hospital compound in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.

If the “aggression” on the areas in central Gaza is not stopped, the death toll is expected to rise rapidly, he said.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital is currently the only medical facility serving more than a million people in the region, the spokesman said.

He warned that the facility does not have enough capacity to accommodate more patients. The hospital is already “overcrowded with injured people,” many of whom are being treated in the ward.

An attack on another house in the neighboring Maghazi refugee camp left two people dead, according to officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital.

Earlier, the Israeli military said in a statement that fighter jets were attacking Hamas targets in the center of the Gaza Strip, while ground troops were operating in the al-Bureij area “in a targeted manner and under the guidance of intelligence.”

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Deir el-Balah that the hospital’s medical staff was overwhelmed with the number of incoming victims.

“Doctors everywhere are running around looking for the remaining medical supplies, including antiseptics and anesthetics, to perform urgent operations and save lives,” Mahmoud said.

“We can still hear explosions from the ongoing attacks and heavy machine gun fire in the eastern part of central Gaza – including the densely populated Maghazi and Bureij camps,” he added.

“We learn from relatives of the victims that entire families are still trapped in the bombed-out houses of these camps.”

Will the ceasefire proposal fail?

Israeli forces waged an offensive in Bureij and several other nearby refugee camps in central Gaza for several weeks earlier this year.

Last Friday, troops withdrew from the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza after weeks of fighting left the already devastated area heavily damaged. A Gaza Civil Defense spokesman said rescue workers had recovered the bodies of 360 people, mostly women and children.

The Israeli air strikes and ground offensives in the Gaza Strip come as international mediators await a response from Israel and Hamas to a new proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Tuesday the group would not accept any agreement with Israel that did not clearly provide for a permanent ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

“The Israeli response talks about opening the door to negotiations on everything, with no end in sight or timetable… this confirms that Israel only wants a phase in which it takes its prisoners and then resumes its aggression and war against our people,” Hamdan said.

“As long as there is no clear willingness of the Zionist occupying power to a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from Gaza, we cannot agree to any agreement that does not provide or guarantee either a permanent ceasefire or a complete withdrawal and a subsequent prisoner exchange,” he added.

When announcing the plan last week, US President Joe Biden said the three-phase plan was proposed by Israel. Since then, however, Israeli politicians have appeared to distance themselves from the proposal and vowed to continue the fight against Hamas until the group is destroyed.

According to the Health Ministry, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombings and ground operations in the Gaza Strip.

Israel is expanding its offensive to the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip and has largely cut off the supply of food, medicine and other aid to Palestinians suffering from widespread hunger.

More than a million Palestinians have fled Rafah, most of them to tent camps that have sprung up throughout the central and southern Gaza Strip.