by Arafat Barbakh and Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA/DOHA (Reuters) – The latest Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have cost the lives of at least 151 people, including eleven occupants of a house in Deir al Balah, in the center of the territory, the ministry said on Friday of Health of the Palestinian enclave, under Hamas control.
Residents of the Palestinian enclave said air raids and ground clashes continued across the territory, devastated after more than three months of Israeli offensive.
In The Hague, Israel rejected accusations of genocide brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The Israeli government claims to do everything to protect civilian populations but accuses Hamas, which it swore to eradicate from the Gaza Strip after its deadly assault on October 7, of using residents as human shields and diverting humanitarian aid, which the Islamist group denies.
According to health authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, eleven people were killed at dawn on Friday in a house belonging to the Fayad family, a well-known family in Deir al Balah. Israel said it was unable to comment on the information.
Israeli forces, the Jewish state said earlier, killed dozens of fighters in Maghazi, near Deir al Balah, and in the town of Khan Younes, in the south of the territory.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters continued to engage Israeli forces on the ground, adding that tanks and bulldozers were hit by anti-tank rocket fire.
23,708 PALESTINIANS KILLED
According to a new count provided by Gaza health authorities at midday Friday, 23,708 Palestinians have died and 60,005 have been injured since the start of the Israeli offensive on October 7.
“Many victims are still under the rubble and on the roads. Rescue teams cannot reach them,” Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qidra said.
Israel announced at the start of the year that it had begun a new phase in its war against Hamas and the gradual withdrawal of its forces in the north of the enclave, where they were deployed three weeks after October 7.
Sporadic clashes are still reported in this part of the territory and fighting is intensifying in the center and south of the enclave, where the vast majority of Gaza residents have found refuge, on the advice of the Israeli army.
The director of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) for the Palestinian territories, Andrea De Domenico, accused the Israeli authorities of “systematically” blocking Ocha’s access to the northern part of the enclave, in particular actions to support hospitals.
(With Henriette Chacar in Jerusalem, Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Geneva, Jean-Stéphane Brosse for the French version)
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