Israel has continued its aerial and ground bombardment of the Gaza Strip, killing dozens more Palestinians, as fighting rages around Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital, Palestinian officials and the Israeli military said.
Seventy-one people were killed and 112 wounded over the last 24 hours, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Friday.
Two Israeli attacks on the Shujayea suburb in eastern Gaza City killed 17 people, while an Israeli air raid on a house in the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip killed eight people.
At least 10 policemen tasked with securing aid to the displaced in northern Gaza were among those killed in Shujayea, Gaza’s government media office said.
The Israeli military said its forces continued operations around the al-Shifa medical complex, and that over the past day, it had killed a number of gunmen
Al-Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital before the war, was one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in northern Gaza before the latest fighting. It had also been housing displaced civilians.
The Israeli statement said its forces also conducted raids in central and southern areas of the besieged strip, including Khan Younis and al-Karara, where troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen before they killed them.
The armed wing of Hamas said its fighters targeted Israeli forces near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the city’s two hospitals blockaded by Israeli soldiers for several days.
In the far south of the Gaza Strip, Israel continued its bombardment in Rafah, the Palestinians’ last refuge where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering. An air raid on a house killed 12 Palestinians late on Thursday.
More than 32,623 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the start of the war on October 7.