Israel strike kills Hamas spokesperson as hospitals report dozens killed in Gaza City

Deir al-Balah: Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced Sunday that a spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Obeida, was killed in Gaza over the weekend.

Obeida’s last statement was on Friday as Israel began the initial stages of a new military offensive in Gaza City, declaring the area a combat zone. Hamas has not commented on Israel’s claim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said Israel had attacked Obeida, the longtime spokesperson for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, but did not know whether he had been killed. “I do notice there is no one addressing this question on the Hamas side,” Netanyahu told ministers at a weekly cabinet meeting.

Obeida is the latest Hamas representative targeted and killed by Israel as it attempts to dismantle the group’s military capacity and prevent an attack like October 7, 2023, when militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

At least 43 Palestinians were killed since Saturday, most of them in Gaza City, according to local hospitals. Shifa Hospital — the territory’s largest — said 29 bodies had been brought to its morgue, including 10 people killed while seeking aid and others struck across the city.

On Sunday morning, hospital officials reported 11 more fatalities from strikes and gunfire. Al-Awda Hospital said seven of them were civilians trying to reach aid.

Witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire on crowds in the Netzarim Corridor, an Israeli military zone that bisects Gaza. “We were trying to get food, but we were met with the occupation’s bullets,” said Ragheb Abu Lebda, from Nuseirat, who saw at least three people bleeding from gunshot wounds. “It’s a death trap.”

The corridor has become increasingly perilous, with civilians killed while approaching UN convoys overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds, or shot on their way to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed US contractor.

Neither the foundation nor the Israeli military responded to questions about Sunday’s casualties.

Israel has for weeks been operating on the outskirts of Gaza City as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp to prepare for the initial stages of its offensive, which it

announced on Friday.Its military has since intensified its air attacks in coastal areas of the city, including Rimal.

Its Arabic-language army spokersperson has urged the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in Gaza City to flee south, but only tens of thousands have done so.

Many say they are too exhausted after repeated displacements or unconvinced that anywhere is safer.

The United Nations says roughly 65,000 Palestinians have fled their homes since August 1, including 23,199 in the past week. Many are living in temporary shelters after multiple displacements. More than 90 per cent of the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced at least once during the war, and many multiple times, according to the UN.agencies