At least 39 people were killed by Israeli strikes across northern Gaza on Saturday, as rescue workers scrambled to find survivors beneath the rubble, according to Palestinian and hospital officials.
Fadel Naem, director of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, told reporters that more than three dozen bodies arrived at the hospital.
Israel said Saturday that its fighter jets struck two Hamas military sites in the Gaza City area but did not elaborate further.
The deaths come a day after at least 25 people were killed in strikes on tent camps and 50 wounded near the southern city of Rafah. Israel said Saturday that it was continuing to operate in central and southern Gaza and has pushed ahead with its invasion of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.
Most have now fled the city, but the United Nations says no place in Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire as families shelter in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water or medical supplies.
A separate Israeli strike Saturday in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley killed a member of the military wing of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni Muslim faction closely allied with Hamas, according to the group. The member was the seventh killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.
The Israel-Hamas war erupted on 7 October when Hamas militants who stormed southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage. Israel has responded by bombarding and invading the enclave, killing more than 37, 400 Palestinians there according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Nearly 600 Palestinians killed in West Bank
Also on Saturday, Israel’s army said an Israeli man was fatally shot in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, where Israeli forces fatally shot two militants Friday, the latest flare of violence in the territory since the Israel-Hamas war.
At least 549 Palestinians in the territory have been killed by Israeli fire since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the killings. Over the same period, Palestinians in the West Bank have killed at least nine Israelis, including five soldiers, according to UN data.
Israeli nationals are prohibited from entering Qalqilya and other areas of the West Bank that fall under the under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
Anger across the country is growing at the government's handling of the war in Gaza and the hostage crisis. On Saturday, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv calling for new elections and for the government to bring the hostages home.
