Gaza’s Health Ministry says 150 people have been killed in the territory in the last 24 hours and another 313 were wounded as Israeli forces continue to battle militants, even in the northern part of the territory.
The north, where entire neighbourhoods have been flattened, was the initial target of Israel’s ground offensive in late October.
Israel’s military said on Wednesday that its forces killed more than 15 Hamas militants in northern Gaza over the past day and targeted militant infrastructure in a school.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected two key demands made by Hamas in indirect cease-fire talks, saying that Israel will not withdraw from the Gaza Strip or release thousands of jailed militants.
The latest deaths bring the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s offensive to 26,900, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between civilian and combata=-nt deaths but says most of those killed were women and children.
Hamas’ October 7 attack in southern Israel that sparked the war killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and about 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Gaza Strip Gaza’s Health Ministry says 150 people have been killed in the last 24 hours and another 313 were wounded.
The deaths bring the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s offensive to 26,900, according to the Hama-controlled ministry.
It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths but says most of those killed were women and children.
The nearly four-month war began with Hamas’ October 7 attack in Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted another 250.
Israeli forces are still battling militants across Gaza, even in the northern part of the territory, which was the initial target
of the ground offensive in late October and where entire neighbourhoods have been flattened.
The military said on Wednesday that its forces killed more than 15 Hamas militants in northern Gaza over the past day
and targeted militant infrastructure in a school. It said air and ground forces targeted militants on the outskirts of the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, which
dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and resembles a dense urban neighbourhood.
The military had said in mid-November that it was in control of Shati.
The heaviest fighting is in the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israeli officials suspect senior Hamas leaders may be hiding in a labyrinth of tunnels.
The war has driven some 85 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes into other parts of the besieged territory, and UN officials say a quarter of the population is starving.
Iran threatened on Wednesday to “decisively respond” to any US attack on the Islamic Republic following President Joe Biden’s linking of Tehran to the killing of three US soldiers at a military base in Jordan.
The US has signalled it is preparing for retaliatory strikes in the Mideast in the wake of
the Sunday drone attack that also injured at least 40 troops at
Tower 22, a secretive base in northeastern Jordan that’s been crucial to the American presence in neighbouring Syria.