At least 70 people were killed and dozens injured last night in an Israeli airstrike on the Al Maghazi refugee camp, in the center of the Gaza Strip, in an intense night of bombing throughout the enclave.
“It is a new massacre committed by the “Israeli” occupation army in the Al Maghazi field, where they bombed 4 inhabited houses belonging to the Muslim, Salim, Nawasira and Abu Rahma families,” reported the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health – controlled by Hamas-, Ashraf al Qudra.
The spokesman also accused Israeli troops of bombing the main road linking several refugee camps in the central area of the enclave “to hinder the access of ambulances and civil defense to the various locations.”
“We call on all countries of the free world to put pressure on the criminal occupation to stop the war of genocide committed by the occupation army against our Palestinian people and against children, women and civilians,” Qudra said.
Intense Israeli bombing in two and a half months of offensive has claimed the lives of at least 20,400 Gazans – 70% civilians, including more than 8,000 children – and injured more than 54,000; in addition to 7,500 bodies that are estimated to be trapped under the rubble, according to the latest count from the Ministry of Health.
“The horrible Zionist criminal massacre in the Maghazi refugee camp (…) is a new war crime as an extension of the war of extermination that is being committed against children and defenseless civilians,” the political movement of Hamas, which has de facto governed the Strip since 2007.
Regarding the attack on Maghazi, medical sources from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, a reference in the central area, indicated that some bodies of the victims arrived fragmented as a result of the artillery and raids that targeted several houses in the camp.
That hospital also received dozens of dead and wounded from several attacks on the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps, also in the center of the enclave, where Israeli troops ordered their evacuation last Friday, forcing the displacement of thousands of people under bombs.
“Occupation artillery shelled agricultural land in Nuseirat, wounding several citizens, while others were killed and wounded in another bombardment aimed at the southern region,” reported the official Palestinian Wafa agency, which also reported artillery attacks on civilian homes in the city of Deir al balah, also in the central area.
In addition, the bombings have not stopped throughout the rest of the enclave, including one in Khan Yunis, in the south, which has left at least 22 dead.
The director of the Nasser hospital, the main hospital in Khan Yunis, reported that people arrived with critical injuries that could be caused by “internationally prohibited weapons,” Wafa said.
In the northern half of the enclave, the cities of Beit Hanun and Jabalia were the hardest hit by attacks, both air and artillery,
Civil defense teams in Gaza reported that in the north, practically devastated by fighting, there are hundreds of decomposing bodies due to the difficulties in reaching them, especially in the Jabalia refugee camp, which has suffered a harsh offensive. Israeli.
The Israeli Army claimed to have dismantled yesterday an underground military barracks in the Jabalia field, from which an extensive network of Hamas tunnels also started.
“The occupation troops fired live bullets directly at a group of citizens south of Gaza City, as they tried to return to their homes in the northern Strip, wounding several of them,” Wafa added.
The health system in the south, where Israel is now focusing its offensive, “is collapsing”, while in the northern half there are no longer any hospitals in operation, denounced the Ministry of Health.