SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Alexander Cornwell, Wafaa Shurafa and Bassem Mroue
Cairo: Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people in Gaza on Friday morning (Gaza time), as US President Donald Trump wraps up his Middle East visit.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, where they were brought. Survivors said many people were still under the rubble.
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip.Credit: AP
The widespread strikes across northern Gaza come as Trump finishes his visit to Gulf states, but not Israel.
There had been widespread hope that Trump’s regional visit could usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza. An Israeli blockade of the territory is now in its third month.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes.
The strikes lasted hours into Friday morning (Gaza time), sending people fleeing from the Jabaliya refugee camp and the town of Beit Lahiya, and followed days of similar attacks that killed more than 130 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed earlier in the week to push ahead with a promised escalation of force in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip to pursue his aim of destroying the Hamas militant group, which governs Gaza.
In comments released by Netanyahu’s office this week, the prime minister said Israeli forces were days away from entering Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission … It means destroying Hamas”.
It was unclear if Friday’s bombardment was the start of the operation.
At least 85 people were killed in Israeli military strikes on Thursday, Palestinian medics said.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli army airstrike on the European hospital in Khan Younis.Credit: AP
Most of the victims, including women and children, were killed in Khan Younis in southern Gaza in airstrikes that hit homes and tents, they said, while in northern Gaza, an Israeli strike on Al-Tawba medical clinic killed at least 15 people and wounded several others, the Health Ministry said.
The dead included journalist Hassan Samour, who worked for the Hamas-run Aqsa radio station and was killed along with 11 family members when their home was hit, the medics said.
The Israeli military said its air force had struck 130 targets used by militant groups in Gaza in recent days.
Attacks on Gaza on Wednesday killed at least 80 people, health officials in Gaza said.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military killed five Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, hours after a pregnant Israeli settler was killed in a shooting, as hardline pro-settler leaders – including a government minister – called for Palestinian towns to be razed.
Tzeela Gez was shot near Brukhin while travelling to hospital with her husband to give birth. She was pronounced dead at the hospital where her baby was delivered by caesarean section, Israeli media reported. The baby was reportedly in a serious but stable condition, while Gez’s husband Hananel was lightly injured.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, which occurred amid one of the largest Israeli military operations in the West Bank in two decades.
As retribution, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the nearby Palestinian towns of Bruqin and az-Zawiya should be destroyed.
“Just as we are flattening Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza (in the Gaza Strip), we must also flatten the terror nests in Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich said on X, employing the term often used in Israel for the West Bank.
Attacks escalate
Hamas said in a statement that Israel was making a “desperate attempt to negotiate under cover of fire” as indirect ceasefire talks took place, also involving Trump envoys and Qatar and Egyptian mediators in Doha.
Palestinian health officials say the Israeli attacks have escalated since Trump started a visit to the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this week. Many Palestinians had hoped he would use the tour to push for a truce.
On May 14, Palestinians commemorated the “Nakba”, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced to flee their towns and villages during the 1948 war that gave birth to Israel.
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia.Credit: AP
“What we are experiencing now is even worse than the Nakba of 1948,” said Ahmed Hamad, a Palestinian in Gaza City who has been displaced several times.
“The truth is, we live in a constant state of violence and displacement. Wherever we go, we face attacks. Death surrounds us everywhere.”
Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, in which about 1200 people were killed and 251 were taken as hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 52,900 Palestinians, according to local health officials. It has left Gaza on the brink of famine, aid groups and international agencies say.
AP / Reuters
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