DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza killed 38 people on Friday, Palestinian health officials said, including 13 children from the same extended family.
In northern Gaza, health officials reported that Israeli forces had raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the area. Israel has renewed its offensive against Hamas in the north in recent weeks, and aid groups are sounding the alarm over dire humanitarian conditions.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes on the country’s southeast killed three journalists working for news outlets that are considered to be aligned with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.
The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 38 people and wounding dozens.
The Israeli military, which has said that troops are targeting Hamas fighters in the southern town, did not respond to questions about Friday’s attack on several residential buildings. Palestinians said the neighborhood was hit with no warning.
Footage from the Palestinian Civil Defense showed rescuers pulling the bloodied bodies of nine children from the al-Farra family out of the ruins.
The victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis as well as to the European Hospital, where records showed at least 15 members of the al-Farra family had been killed. Six members of the Abdeen family were also killed, health officials reported.
Saleh al-Farra, who lost his 17-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister in the attack, said that shaking from the bombardment sent his family members running to the middle of the house for shelter. The next thing he knew, he said, he was waking up in the rubble of what had been his home.
“I started screaming and screaming until my brother and father came, and they started trying to pull me out,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about anyone.”
In response to reports that it had stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said only that it was “operating in the area” of the hospital based on intelligence that indicated the presence of militants and militant infrastructure.
The pediatric hospital is one of the area’s three medical facilities to remain somewhat operational after more than a year of war. Since Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the hospitals amid its renewed assault against Hamas militants in northern Gaza, doctors have warned that dire shortages of food, medicine and other supplies had triggered a humanitarian emergency.
The Gaza-based Ministry of Health reported that Israeli troops on Friday rounded up medical staff and displaced people sheltering at the hospital and forced the men to strip, a common practice that Israel says is meant to ensure detainees do not conceal weapons. The ministry said some Palestinians were detained, without specifying how many.
The Palestinian Civil Defense said that Israeli forces arrested two of its workers, including a local rescue coordinator and a firefighter. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the arrests.
The World Health Organization said on Friday it lost touch with staff at Kamal Adwan, where some had been the night before to deliver supplies and help transfer patients to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
“This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X about the loss of communication.
Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safiya could not be reached on Friday. In voice messages sent late Thursday, Abu Safiya claimed that the hospital had come under Israeli tank fire. The Israeli military denied that a tank had fired at the hospital.
“Patients are still lying on the floors of the reception and emergency areas, with many in critical condition. There are no resources, supplies, or specialists to save these children’s lives,” Abu Safiya said in his voice message. “We appeal to the world to intervene and preserve our hospitals.”
The United Nations has said hundreds of thousands of people have been trapped in northern Gaza with little food or supplies as Israeli forces close in on the town of Jabaliya. The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, said Friday that Israeli military actions in the north “risk emptying the area of all Palestinians.”
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 - in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged another 250 back into Gaza - many hospitals in Gaza have come under attack. Kamal Adwan was besieged and raided by Israeli forces a year ago.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas fighters of using hospitals, and tunnels beneath them, as bases. Hamas and Palestinian doctors have repeatedly denied that claim.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israel’s military announced Friday that three more soldiers were killed in Gaza this week, without providing details. That brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since the start of its ground invasion to 359.
Thick dust churned up by the latest airstrikes on Lebanon coated cars marked “PRESS” parked outside a residence where journalists were staying. Friday’s attack brought down buildings in southeast Lebanon - an area that had been spared the brunt of Israel’s bombardment and invasion - and killed three journalists.
Al-Manar TV, operated by Hezbollah, and the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, an outlet seen as aligned with the militant group, said its staffers were among those killed.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike. Lebanon’s Health Minister said Friday that 11 journalists have been killed and eight wounded since Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group began trading cross-border fire in October 2023.
On Friday, at least two people in northern Israel were killed by shrapnel during a rocket barrage from Lebanon, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service. The rockets struck in Majd Al-Krum, an Arab town in the country’s north, hitting a gym. Six others were injured, the rescue services added, including an 80-year-old man who remained in serious condition.
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Shurafa reported from Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press journalists Mohammed Zaatari in Hasbaya, Lebanon and Adam Schreck in Jerusalem contributed reporting.
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