Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 31 people in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian doctors said, with nearly half of the deaths in northern areas where the army has been waging a month-long campaign aimed at preventing a Hamas regrouping.
Palestinians have said the new air and ground offensives and forced evacuations are “ethnic cleansing” aimed at emptying two towns in northern Gaza and a refugee camp of their population in order to create buffer zones.
Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas militants who launch attacks from there.
Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on homes in the town of Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic camps and the focus of the army’s new offensive.
The others were killed in several Israeli airstrikes in Gaza city and southern areas, including one in Khan Younis, which health officials said had killed eight people, including four children.
Later on Sunday, health officials at the Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya said the facility was hit by Israeli tank fire and that a child admitted to the hospital was seriously injured.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the hospital, said the accident occurred after a delegation from the World Health Organization visited the facility and evacuated some patients.
Child polio vaccinations resume in Gaza as WHO urges ceasefire
Meanwhile, COGAT, the Israeli military’s Palestinian civil affairs agency, said it had facilitated the launch of the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza on Saturday and that 58,604 children had received a dose.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Israeli military offensive in northern Gaza was preventing them from vaccinating thousands of children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
A clinic is said to have come under Israeli fire as parents took their children for polio doses on Saturday and four children were injured.
The head of the World Health Organization said in a statement that the accident at the clinic occurred despite a humanitarian pause agreed by the two warring sides, Israel and Hamas, to allow for the vaccination campaign.
“A @WHO team was on site shortly before. This attack, during a humanitarian pause, jeopardizes the sanctity of children’s health protection and could dissuade parents from bringing their children for vaccination,” he said in a statement. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced. posted on X.
“These fundamental pauses for the humanitarian area must absolutely be respected. Ceasefire!” he said.
The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment on Tedros’ remarks, said it was checking the report on the clinic.
A broader ceasefire that would end the war and see the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held captive in Gaza, as well as Palestinians jailed by Israel, remains remote due to disagreements between Hamas and Israel.
Hamas wants a deal to end the war permanently, rejecting recent offers of temporary truces, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.
