Gaza death toll crosses 43,000 as Israel escalates strikes

A WOMAN walks through the rubble, following an Israeli strike in northern Gaza Strip’s Beit Lahia area, on Monday.—AFP

DUBAI: More than 43,020 Palestinians have been killed and 101,110 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since Oct 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry announced in a statement on Monday.
It said that at least 19 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on Monday, 13 of them in the north of the shattered coastal territory. Israeli tanks thrust deeper into two north Gaza towns and a historic refugee camp, trapping around 100,000 civilians, in what the Israeli military claimed were operations to root out Hamas members.

The Israeli military claimed soldiers captured around 100 suspected Hamas members in a raid into Kamal Adwan hospital in the Jabalia camp. Hamas and medics reject the Israeli claim.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies.
The emergency service said its operations had ground to a halt because of the three-week-long Israeli assault back into the north. North Gaza’s three hospitals, where officials refused orders by the Israeli army to evacuate, were hardly operating. At least two had been damaged by Israeli fire during the assault and run out of medical, food and fuel stocks.
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At least one doctor, a nurse and two child patients had died in those hospitals due to a lack of treatment in the past week.
The Gaza health ministry said there was only one of roughly 70 medical staff, a paediatrician, left at Kamal Adwan Hospital after Israel detained and expelled the others.
North Gaza residents said Israeli forces were besieging schools and other shelters housing displaced families, ordering them out before rounding up men and ushering women and children out of the area towards Gaza City and the south.
Only a few families headed to southern Gaza as the majority preferred to relocate temporarily in Gaza City, fearing they could otherwise never regain access to their homes.

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Seven killed in Lebanon
Israel launched fresh strikes on Monday on Lebanon’s city of Tyre, Lebanese state media said, after the Israeli military told people of the southern city to evacuate following an earlier raid that left seven people dead.
The National News Agency (NNA) reported “a series of strikes” on the ancient coastal city, beginning with a raid on a residential apartment.
Thick clouds of smoke covering parts of Tyre were reported. The Israeli army had earlier told residents in parts of central Tyre to leave immediately, warning it would attack what it claimed ‘Hezbollah targets’ there.
“Hezbollah’s activities force the (Israeli military) to act against it forcefully,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee asserted in a post on X, urging residents to “head north”.

An accompanying map showed large swathes of the city marked in red, including an area abutting a Unesco World Heritage site.

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EU seeks ceasefire
The EU foreign policy chief on Monday renewed calls for an “immediate ceasefire” in Lebanon and condemned Israel’s “unacceptable attacks” on UN peacekeepers in its war against Hezbollah.
The offensive against Hezbollah has thrust the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission to the forefront of the escalating conflict in the Middle East.
UNIFIL, deployed in southern Lebanon since 1978, has reported several injuries and damage to its facilities since Israel launched its ground offensive at the end of September.
The European Union calls “for an immediate ceasefire across the blue lines” UNIFIL monitors and the respect of relevant UN Security Council resolutions, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told a forum in Barcelona.
Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2024