An Israeli air strike in a residential area in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has killed at least 29 Palestinians while a hospital was raided in northern Gaza, and another attack on a refugee camp in that area claimed the lives of 10 people.
Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge in Rafah, near the Gaza-Egypt border, to escape Israeli bombardments in the northern regions, despite concerns about their safety in the new location.
“Three residential buildings in one area were destroyed in the attack,” said journalist Hani Mahmoud from Rafah on Tuesday, reports Al Jazeera. The number of casualties was expected to rise as more bodies were retrieved from the rubble, under which more people were also trapped, he said.
Journalist Adel Zoroub was among the 29 killed in the air raid in Rafah, the Government Media Office in Gaza said on its Telegram channel, reports Al Jazeera.
At least 10 Palestinians were killed and many more injured in an Israeli air raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in the enclave said.
Intense conflicts raged in northern Gaza, where Hamas continued to put up strong resistance. The enclave is now a devastated wasteland seven weeks after Israeli tanks and troops entered the area.
Ashraf al-Qudra, the Ministry of Health spokesperson in Gaza, said on Tuesday that Israeli forces turned al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza into barracks after detaining more than 240 people.
Those being held included “80 hospital staff, 40 patients, and 120 displaced people, inside the hospital”, he said, reports Al Jazeera. They arrested six of the hospital’s staff, including the director of the facility, Ahmed Muhanna, according to al-Qudra.
Israeli forces also raided the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City overnight and into Tuesday, according to the church that operates it, destroying a wall at its front entrance and detaining most of its staff.
Don Binder, a pastor at St George’s Anglican Cathedral in occupied East Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, was quoted by The Associated Press news agency as saying that the raid left just two doctors, four nurses and two janitors to tend to more than 100 seriously wounded patients, with no running water or electricity, reports Al Jazeera.
A World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Monday that the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza that Israeli army raided last week had stopped functioning and patients, including babies, have been evacuated.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 19,453 Palestinians have been killed so far and 52,286 wounded in the Israeli assault on the Hamas-ruled enclave in more than two months of war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to achieve total victory over Hamas.
The civilian casualties, hunger, and displacement caused by Israel's retaliatory strikes have sparked widespread concern among numerous governments and international organizations.
Meanwhile, talks for another truce between the sides continue facilitated by Qatar's mediation efforts amid repeated appeals by the international community for an end to hostilities.