Wounded children gather in Gaza City after bombing – Reuters
Two small gray bodies of dust carried, one in each arm, by a Red Crescent rescuer on a gray street of rubble, under a dazzling sun, are the snapshot of the most recent massacre in the Gaza Strip. They will be ten or eleven years old, one clings to the man’s shoulder. The image of the faces, in another photo, does not leave much room for hope.
At least 42 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli raid in the north of the enclave: in the al-Shati refugee camp, where the two photos were taken, and in the al-Tuffah district in Gaza City. A video documents the destruction in al-Tuffah. The death count comes from the Hamas government, the images bear witness to the torment. According to Times of Israel, which cites Israeli sources in Gaza, the attack was aimed at a senior Hamas commander: operations chief Raad Saad. It is unclear whether he was eliminated. Last March he escaped the large-scale operation conducted by the army in the al-Shifa hospital, also in Gaza City, where intelligence had said he was hidden. It is the second time in two days that dozens of civilians have died in a raid.
On Friday it was the turn of the displaced from the coastal area of al-Mawasi, near Rafah, designated as a “humanitarian area”. The Red Cross confirmed the killing of 25 people in a bombing “with large caliber bullets” which also damaged the organisation’s offices, around which tents were pitched. About fifty people were injured.
“Firing so dangerously close to humanitarian facilities puts the lives of civilians and humanitarian workers at risk,” writes the Red Cross. At first the army denied it, then a spokesperson informed that the facts were being ascertained. The European Union, the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, writes in X, «condemns the bombings that damaged the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza and caused dozens of victims. An independent investigation is necessary and those responsible must be held to account. The protection of civilians – he reminds us – is an obligation provided for by the Geneva Conventions».
According to Hamas government data, 101 Palestinians were killed in twenty-four hours: the bloodiest day in recent weeks. In eight and a half months of fighting, 37,551 victims were reported, with 86,000 wounded.
While the war threatens to spread to Lebanon, the army has announced the killing “in a targeted raid” in the Beqaa Valley of the “terrorist Ayman Ratma, responsible for supplying weapons to the terrorist organizations of Hamas and Jamaa Islamiya”, this the last Sunni and close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Kuwait has asked its citizens to leave the country. Violence and deaths also occurred in the West Bank, where an Israeli was killed near Qalqilyai. He was traveling by car when he was shot.
In the same area, on Friday, Israeli police killed two wanted Palestinians. Also in the West Bank, twelve-year-old Muhammad Murad Khoshiyeh died in hospital. He was hit by army fire last week in clashes in al-Bireh, near Ramallah. Adding to the anger in the Territories is the release of a video in which a wounded Palestinian near Jenin is tied to the bonnet of an Israeli military vehicle and transported to hospital.
