Israeli forces on Friday shelled tent camps for displaced Palestinians outside Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, killing at least 25 people and wounding another 50, to the territory’s health officials and emergency workers said.
Witnesses whose relatives died in one of the bombardments near a Red Cross field hospital north of Rafah said that Israeli forces fired a second volley that killed people who came out of their tents.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the hospital was flooded with casualties, including 22 dead and 45 wounded, and condemned the firing of “high-caliber projectiles” a few meters from the facility.
Photo: Reuters
Hundreds of people live in tents nearby, including many of the hospital staff, the ICRC said.
Ahmed Radwan, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense first responders in Rafah, said witnesses told rescue workers about shelling at two locations in a coastal area that has become filled with makeshift tents.
The locations of the attacks provided by the Civil Defense and the Red Cross hospital appeared to be just outside an Israeli-designated safe zone on the Mediterranean coast, known as Muwasi.
The Israeli military said the episode was under review, but “there is no indication that a strike was carried out by the IDF[Israel Defense Forces]” inside the safe zone.
It did not offer details on the episode or say what the intended targets might have been.
With Israel’s war against Hamas now in its ninth month, international criticism is growing over the campaign of systematic destruction in Gaza, at a huge cost in civilian lives.
The hospital’s location is known to all parties in the conflict and marked with the Red Cross emblem, the ICRC said on Friday.
The 60-bed field hospital was opened in the middle of last month to provide emergency surgeries, obstetric, pediatric and outpatient care, a news release said at the time.
Elsewhere, Civil Defense teams in the northern Gaza Strip recovered the bodies of five people who were killed in an airstrike that hit two apartments in Gaza City, and several others were wounded. An airstrike earlier on Friday hit a municipal garage in the city and killed five people.
Fadel Naeem, the orthopedic chief at al-Ahli hospital, said that the bodies of 30 people were brought there on Friday, calling it “a difficult and brutal day in Gaza City.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said that two soldiers were killed in combat in central Gaza. No information was given about the circumstances of the deaths of the two, both men in their 20s. Three other Israeli soldiers were severely injured, the army said.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
RSS