GAZA STRIP: Health officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Saturday that Israeli strikes overnight killed at least 60 people in the besieged territory, which was also grappling with a telecommunications blackout on the war’s 99th day.
Fears of the conflict widening intensified after US and British forces struck pro-Hamas Huthi rebels in Yemen following attacks on Red Sea shipping, with the US military announcing a fresh air strike on Saturday.
Witnesses in the Gaza Strip reported Israeli bombardment in the early morning. An AFP correspondent said intense shelling and air strikes hit the Palestinian territory’s south overnight.
The Israeli army said its forces had struck dozens of rocket launchers that were “ready to be used” in central Gaza, and eliminated four “terrorists” in air strikes on Khan Yunis, Gaza’s major southern city, near Rafah.
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, reported “more than 60 martyrs” in Israeli air strikes and artillery fire, with dozens more wounded.
Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack has killed at least 23,843 people, mostly women and children, according to an updated toll on Saturday from the territory’s health ministry.
The war, in which Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, began when the militants launched their unprecedented attack on Israel that resulted in about 1,140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
At Rafah’s Al-Najjar hospital, mourners gathered and prayed around the bodies of slain relatives. One man held the body of a child, wrapped in white cloth, ahead of burial.
Internet and telecommunications services were cut Friday as a result of Israeli bombardment, the main operator Paltel said, reporting the latest such disruption.
The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, told AFP that Israel was blocking aid convoys into northern Gaza.
In central Gaza, a lack of fuel forced the shutdown of the main generator of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, the health ministry said.
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said a deal had been negotiated with Qatar to get medicine to the captives.
Israeli campaign group Hostages and Missing Families Forum released a report this week saying the captives were in poor health, some with complex illnesses, others with injuries.
Israel criticised the UN human rights office for not reiterating its calls for the release of the hostages in a statement marking the looming 100th day of the conflict.
“A call for a ceasefire, without demanding the release of our hostages and the disarming of Hamas, is a call for terrorism to win,” its mission in Geneva said.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, has called repeatedly for the hostages to be freed.
The International Court of Justice this week heard arguments in a case launched by South Africa, accusing Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention over the Gaza war.
Both Israel and its ally the United States have dismissed the case as groundless, and the court is likely to make an initial ruling within weeks.
