At least 39 people killed in Israeli strikes across northern Gaza, officials say
Israel said that its fighter jets struck two Hamas military sites in the Gaza City area but did not elaborate further.
At least 39 people were killed by Israeli strikes across northern Gaza on Saturday, according to Palestinian and hospital officials.
Fadel Naem, director of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, told The Associated Press that more than three dozen bodies arrived at the hospital.
The Palestinian Civil Defence, an emergency group active in Gaza, said it pulled approximately the same number of bodies from a building hit by an Israeli strike in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City.
The group said its emergency workers were also digging for survivors at the site of another strike in Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
Israel said that its fighter jets struck two Hamas military sites in the Gaza City area but did not elaborate further.
A separate Israeli strike Saturday in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley killed a member of the military wing of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni Muslim faction closely allied with Hamas, according to the group.
The member was the seventh killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.
The Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7 when Hamas militants who stormed southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage.
Israel has responded by bombarding and invading the enclave, killing more than 37, 400 Palestinians there according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Also on Saturday, Israel’s army said an Israeli man was fatally shot in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, where Israeli forces fatally shot two militants on Friday, the latest flare of violence in the territory since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.
Since the war’s start, at least 549 Palestinians in the territory have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the killings.
Over the same period, Palestinians in the West Bank have killed at least nine Israelis, including five soldiers, according to UN data.
Israeli nationals are prohibited from entering Qalqilya and other areas of the West Bank that fall under the under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
In 2014, the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank escalated tensions and eventually ignited a 50-day Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, at the time the deadliest round of fighting between the two sides.
Over recent years, the Palestinian Authority’s influence in the northern West Bank has waned as militant groups have grown increasingly powerful.
Also Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died from his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces in Ramallah last week.
Commenting on the shooting, the Israeli army said its forces raided al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah to arrest a suspect on Friday and then opened fire on a group of Palestinians who were pelting them with stones.
