Israeli forces killed at least 33 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including a rescue worker, health officials said, as Israeli troops deepened an incursion along the territory’s northern edge, bombarding a hospital and blowing up homes.
Medics said at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the area of Jabalia in northern Gaza earlier on Wednesday, and at least 10 people remained missing as rescue operations continued. Another man was killed in tank shelling nearby, they said.
Later on Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike killed seven Palestinians, including a girl, in Al-Mawasi, a humanitarian-designated area in western Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Gaza medics said. Palestinian and UN officials say no place in the enclave is safe.
Another airstrike on a house in Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City killed four people, while a strike killed three Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others at a school sheltering displaced families in central Gaza Strip, medics said.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, said the hospital “was bombed across all its departments without warning, as we were trying to save an injured person in the intensive care unit” on Tuesday. The hospital is one of three medical facilities barely operational in the besieged northern area,
“Following the arrest of 45 members of the medical and surgical staff and the denial of entry to a replacement team, we are now losing wounded patients daily who could have survived if resources were available,” he told Reuters in a text message.
“Unfortunately, food and water are not allowed to enter, and not even a single ambulance is permitted access to the north.”
There were 85 injured people, including children and women, at the hospital, six in the ICU, the director said. Seventeen children had arrived with signs of malnutrition as a result of food shortages. One man died of dehydration a day ago, Abu Safiya added.
Israeli operations in Gaza have focused for weeks on the northern edge of the territory, where the military has laid siege to three major towns and ordered residents to flee.
Residents in the three towns — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said forces had blown up dozens of houses. Palestinians say Israel appears determined to permanently depopulate the area to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza. Israel denies that allegation.Â
Israel’s 13-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,000 people and displaced nearly all the enclave’s population at least once. It was launched in response to an attack by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Rescue worker killed in Gaza City
Months of attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress and negotiations are now on ice, with mediator Qatar having suspended its efforts until the sides are prepared to make concessions.
Although Israel’s assaults have been focused on the towns on the northern edge since last month, its strikes have continued across the territory.
In the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said an Israeli airstrike targeted one of its teams during a rescue operation, killing one staff member and wounding three others. In the nearby Zeitoun neighbourhood, an Israeli strike on a house killed two people, medics said.
Aid groups in Gaza say the food crisis is continually getting worse and the limited supplies aren’t getting to those who need them. Israel says there is enough food and few people are going hungry — despite evidence to the contrary.
The death in Sabra raises the number of civil emergency service members killed since Oct 7, 2023, to 87, the service said.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the incidents.
In Rafah, in the south, medics said three men were killed and others wounded in two separate Israeli airstrikes.
U.S. vetoes UN ceasefire resolution
On Wednesday, the United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza, accusing council members of cynically rejecting attempts at reaching a compromise.
The 15-member council voted on a resolution put forward by its 10 non-permanent members in a meeting that called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,” and it separately demand the release of hostages.
Only the U.S. voted against, using its veto as a permanent council member to block the resolution.
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Hamas’ acting Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya said that there would be no hostages-for-prisoners swap deal with Israel unless the war in the Palestinian enclave ended.
“Without an end to the war, there can be no prisoner swap,” Hayya said in an interview with Al-Aqsa TV released on Wednesday.
“If the aggression is not ended, why would the resistance — and in particular Hamas — return the prisoners [hostages]?” he said. “How would a sane or an insane person lose a strong card he owns while the war is continuing?”
Hamas, Israel blame each other for stalled talks
Hayya, who led the group’s negotiating team in talks with Qatari and Egyptian mediators, blamed the lack of progress on Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in turn holds the Islamist group responsible for the stalled talks.
“There are contacts under way with some countries and mediators to revive this file [negotiation]. We are ready to continue with those efforts but it is more important to see a real will on the side of the occupation to end the aggression,” said Hayya.
“The reality proves that Netanyahu is the one who undermines it [negotiations],” he added.
Speaking during a visit to Gaza on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that Hamas would not rule the Palestinian enclave after the war had ended and that Israel had destroyed the Islamist group’s military capabilities.
Netanyahu also said Israel had not given up trying to locate the 101 remaining hostages believed to still be in the enclave, and he offered a $5-million US reward for the return of each one.
Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.