Several dead in Israeli attacks, Gaza hospitals appeal for help | Gaza News

At least five Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in Israeli attacks in the southern Gaza Strip, reports the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

At least 30 people were injured in Monday’s attacks on Rafah and Khan Younis, Wafa reported.

The injured were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex, but power outages there may make it difficult to treat the injured, the report said.

Palestinian officials said 40 bodies had been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of people killed in Gaza since October 7 to 37,124 and more than 84,700 injured. Thousands more dead are believed to be buried under rubble in the shattered enclave.

In Rafah, the city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip where Israel launched a ground offensive last month, residents reported on Monday that tanks had advanced further north in the early hours of the morning, on the outskirts of Shaboura, one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the heart of the city.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for an attack on Israeli forces there and said its fighters had “killed and wounded” soldiers.

In a statement posted on Telegram, the Qassam Brigades said their fighters detonated explosives in a booby-trapped house while Israeli forces were inside.

“Immediately after the arrival of the rescue team, our (fighters) destroyed the area around the blown-up house with mortar shells,” it said.

About half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents sought refuge in Rafah before last month’s attack. According to the United Nations, one million people have now fled the area.

Israel launched a major offensive in central Gaza last week around the town of Deir el-Balah, the last remaining population center. On Monday, residents reported that the Israelis had withdrawn from some areas but were maintaining air strikes and artillery fire.

Residents of the Nuseirat refugee camp north of Deir el-Balah were still clearing away rubble after Israel freed four prisoners in a major raid there on Saturday. Palestinian officials said the attack killed 274 people, making it one of the deadliest in the ongoing offensive.

In a video from Nuseirat obtained by Reuters, local resident Anas Alyan describes how Israeli soldiers in shorts appeared on the street in front of the ruins of his house and fired wildly, while F-16 fighter jets and quadcopters fired from the air.

“Anyone who moved on the street was killed. Anyone who moved or walked was killed instantly,” he said.

“There are still children lying under this building. We don’t know how to pull them out,” he said, pointing to one ruin. “Today we found children martyred in this building,” he said, pointing to another.

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip, crippled by months of Israeli attacks and a blockade, have asked for help as they struggle to treat their patients.

Reporting from Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said an additional emergency room had been opened to cope with the huge influx of injured patients following Saturday’s raid.

The hospital, which runs on just one generator, continues to be inundated with sick and injured patients and is performing surgeries “hourly,” she said.

“Indescribable” destruction

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that more than half of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed by Israeli attacks since the war began on October 7.

“The destruction in the Gaza Strip is indescribable,” X said, citing data from the UN satellite center.

“Clearing the rubble will take years. Healing the psychological trauma of this war will take even longer,” UNRWA added, calling for a ceasefire.

“This suffering must end,” they said.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israel continued to keep the vital Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt closed “in light of the threat of acute famine throughout the Gaza Strip.”

“This enforcement of collective punishment against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip not only further aggravates the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, but also represents a direct violation of the Provisional Measures Order issued by the International Court of Justice in May and of international humanitarian law,” the medical aid organization said on X.

The Israeli occupation continues to block the #Rafael Crossing the Gaza Strip amidst looming acute famine.
📌 This enforcement of collective punishment against the Palestinian population in #Gaza not only exacerbates the humanitarian situation in the… pic.twitter.com/8suRJK6dP1

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) June 10, 2024

According to Khoudary, only sparse aid supplies are still flowing into Gaza and many people now have “only one meal a day”.

“This is the case not only in the south but also in the north” of the Gaza Strip, Khoudary said, adding that markets were largely empty and the food available was hardly affordable for most people.

The UN World Food Programme said on Monday that it had suspended the delivery of aid to Gaza via a US-built pier due to security concerns.

The Gaza government’s media office said in a statement that Palestinians in Gaza had not “benefited” from the floating pier. It said the pier had neither helped alleviate the suffering of families nor improve the dire humanitarian situation there.

Since the installation about a month and a half ago, only a “very limited number” of 120 trucks carrying relief supplies have come through, the media office said.