Israel pressed its war to crush Hamas yesterday nearly a month after the worst attack in the country’s history, as the Palestinian group said strikes on a central Gaza refugee camp killed dozens.
Fighting continues to rage in densely populated Gaza, despite calls for a ceasefire from Arab countries and desperate civilians after 30 days of war.
Since a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, which Israeli officials say has killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, Israel has bombarded the besieged Gaza Strip.
Photo: EPA
The health ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, says more than 9,480 Gazans, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israeli strikes and the intensifying ground campaign.
Since Israel sent troops into the narrow Palestinian territory late last month, “over 2,500 terror targets have been struck” by “ground, air and naval forces,” the Israeli army said in a statement yesterday.
In the latest onslaught in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry said an Israeli bombing on the al-Maghazi refugee camp late on Saturday killed 30 people, with an eyewitness reporting children dead and homes smashed.
“An Israeli air strike targeted my neighbors’ house in Al-Maghazi camp, my house next door partially collapsed,” said Mohammed Alaloul, 37, a journalist working for the Turkish Anadolu Agency.
Alaloul said his 13-year-old son, Ahmed, and his four-year-old son, Qais, were killed in the bombing, along with his brother, while his wife, mother and two other children were injured.
An Israeli military spokesperson said they were looking into whether their forces had been operating in the area at the time of the bombing.
More than 240 Israeli and foreign hostages were abducted by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack, officials say, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed proposals of a truce.
As the war ground into its fifth week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued his Middle East tour yesterday with a visit to Turkey, where Ankara has hardened its tone against Israel and its Western supporters with the death toll in Gaza surging.
Blinken faced a rising tide of anger in meetings with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan on Saturday, where he reaffirmed US support for “humanitarian pauses” to ensure desperate civilians get help, a day after Netanyahu gave the idea short shrift.
There was a call for a ceasefire on Saturday by thousands of protesters marching in Washington in solidarity with Palestinians, one of multiple similar rallies held from Indonesia to Iran, as well as in European cities.
Palestinian ally Turkey on Saturday said it was recalling its ambassador to Israel and breaking off contacts with Netanyahu in protest at the bloodshed in Gaza.
Turkey had been mending torn relations with Israel until last month’s start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters he held Netanyahu personally responsible for the growing civilian death toll in Gaza.
“Netanyahu is no longer someone we can talk to. We have written him off,” Turkish media quoted Erdogan as saying.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said the move was “another step by the Turkish president that sides with the Hamas terrorist organization.”
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