- IDF says air, naval and ground forces attacked more than 400 targets in Gaza since end of ceasefire
- WHO chief warns situation of health sector in Gaza ‘unimaginable’
- More than 15,500 people hconfirmed killed in Gaza since start of conflict
Tel Aviv/GAZA STRIP: From north to south, nowhere safe in Gaza as 700 more Palestinians killed, majority of them children and women during the past 24 hours, which so far one of the highest daily death tolls since the war began as Israeli army targets the Jabalia refugee camp for a second day.
Israel’s war on Gaza is escalating, leaving death and devastation across the besieged strip.
At least 700 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours – one of the highest daily death tolls since the war began on October 7.
From the north to the south, Palestinians in Gaza say nowhere is safe.
The Israeli military targeted the Jabalia refugee camp for a second day. Several homes were destroyed, killing dozens of people while more are buried under the rubble.
Israel has also called on residents from certain neighbourhoods in Khan Younis in southern Gaza to evacuate. Roads leading to other parts of the city or further south have been destroyed or heavily damaged.
More than 15,500 people have been confirmed killed in Gaza since the start of the conflict, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
A Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson told Al Jazeera that conditions across Gaza are “beyond dire”, warning that rescuers lack the resources to reach all victims of Israeli bombardment.
“There are dozens of civilians being killed in every single air strike. Hundreds are also being wounded,” said Mahmoud Basal.
The Israeli army has ordered more people to evacuate from southern Gaza, which was earlier declared ‘safe zone’.
UNICEF spokesperson describes scenes inside Gaza hospital as ‘death zone’
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids in the past 24 hours in Gaza as the Israeli army ordered more areas in and around the enclave’s second-largest city of Khan Younis to evacuate.
The Director General of the Government Media Office in Gaza told Al Jazeera on Sunday that more than 700 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed bombardment after a seven-day truce ended on Friday.
More than 1.5 million people have been displaced, most of them from northern Gaza, since Israel launched a military offensive on October 7 in the wake of a deadly Hamas attack.
Overnight and into Sunday, intense bombing was reported in Khan Younis, Rafah, and some northern parts targeted by Israel’s air and ground attacks.
“Everywhere you turn to, there are children with third-degree burns, shrapnel wounds, brain injuries and broken bones,” James Elder, UNICEF’s global spokesperson, told Al Jazeera from Gaza.
“Mothers crying over children who look like they are hours away from death. It seems like a death zone right now.”
The main hospital in Khan Younis received at least three dead and dozens wounded on Sunday morning from an Israeli air raid that hit a residential building in the eastern part of the city, according to an Associated Press journalist at the hospital.
Separately, the bodies of 31 people killed in Israeli bombardment across the central areas of the strip were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza’s central city of Deir el-Balah, said Omar al-Darawi, an administrative employee at the hospital.
In northern Gaza, rescue teams with little equipment scrambled on Sunday to dig through the rubble of buildings in the Jabaliya refugee camp and other neighbourhoods in Gaza City in search of potential survivors and dead bodies.
Hopes of any future cessation in the fighting were dashed on Saturday when Israel announced it was pulling out negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, saying talks had reached an “impasse”.
Israel has said it is working to eliminate the armed Palestinian group Hamas, which launched deadly attacks on southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking more than 240 captives, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel has killed more than 15,200 Palestinians in Gaza attacks since October 7, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Evacuation orders
The Israeli military on Sunday expanded evacuation directives in Khan Younis and the vicinity, urging residents from at least five additional areas to relocate for safety purposes.
Leaflets distributed by the military instructed residents to move south to Rafah, or a coastal area in the southwest, emphasising that Khan Younis was a “dangerous” combat zone.
Rights groups have raised concerns against Israel’s stepped-up attacks in the southern part of the besieged enclave, which was earlier declared a “safe zone”.
Following an Israeli air raid on an eastern residential building, the main hospital in Khan Younis reported at least three deaths and dozens of injuries on Sunday morning, according to an AP journalist.
A significant portion of the 2.3 million inhabitants in the territory now resides in the southern areas due to the war.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, a 21-year-old Palestinian was shot dead on Sunday by Israeli forces in a raid in Qalqilya.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Israel arrested at least 60 Palestinians in overnight raids in the occupied territory.
The latest arrests add to more than 3,000 Palestinians arrested in the West Bank since October 7, according to the UN Human Rights Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The Israeli army said it has conducted more than 400 strikes in Gaza since a ceasefire collapsed on Friday, while Hamas announced “rocket barrages” against multiple Israeli towns and cities including Tel Aviv.
Israeli strikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza late Saturday, killing at least 13 people, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
United States Vice President Kamala Harris sharply rebuked on Saturday the rising civilian toll in Israel’s eight-week war, which was sparked by an unprecedented attack on October 7.
“Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” she told reporters at UN climate talks in Dubai.
“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”
According to the United Nations, an estimated 1.7 million people in Gaza — more than two-thirds of the population — have been displaced by eight weeks of war.
Fadel Naim, chief doctor at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, said his morgue had received 30 bodies on Saturday, including seven children.
“The planes bombed our houses: three bombs, three houses destroyed,” Nemr al-Bel, 43, told a foreign news agency, adding he had counted 10 dead in his family and “13 more still under the rubble”.
Reports of violent bombardment in Gaza ‘petrifying’: WHO chief
The situation of the health sector in Gaza is “unimaginable,” the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Sunday.
“The reports of ongoing hostilities and heavy bombardment in Gaza are petrifying,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
“Yesterday (Saturday) our team visited Nassar Medical Hospital in the south. It was packed with 1,000 patients — 3 times over its capacity,” Tedros said, adding that “countless people were seeking shelter, filling every corner of the facility.”
The WHO chief stated that “patients were receiving care on the floor, screaming in pain.”
He stressed that “these conditions are beyond inadequate – unimaginable for the provision of health care.”
“I cannot find words strong enough to express our concern over what we’re witnessing,” Tedros added.
He reiterated his call for a “ceasefire now.”
The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
Israel withdraws negotiators
Hamas fighters broke through Gaza’s militarised border into Israel on October 7, killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 Israelis and foreigners hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas in response and unleashed an air and ground campaign that has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, the Hamas authorities who run Gaza say.
A week-long truce, brokered with the help of Qatar and backed by Egypt and the United States, led to the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
But that truce collapsed with both sides blaming each other for violating its conditions.
Israel said that Hamas had tried to fire a rocket before the ceasefire ended, and that it had failed to produce a list of further hostages for release.
Israeli negotiators left Doha on Saturday after reaching a dead end in talks aimed at securing a fresh pause in hostilities.
The Israeli army on Saturday said 137 hostages were still being held in Gaza.
‘Total victory’
Speaking in Tel Aviv later on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war would continue “until we achieve all its aims” including eliminating the Islamist movement.
“Our soldiers prepared during the days of truce for total victory against Hamas,” he said at his first press conference since fighting resumed.
“There is no way to win except by continuing the ground campaign,” Netanyahu told reporters, underscoring that this would be done while “observing international law”.
Israel’s air, naval and ground forces have attacked more than 400 targets in Gaza since the end of the ceasefire, the army said.
The figure is roughly in line with the daily average number of strikes prior to the pause, according to military figures released previously.
Warplanes hit “more than 50 targets in an extensive attack in the Khan Yunis area” of southern Gaza, according to the military.
Separately, members of an Israeli armoured brigade “eliminated terrorist squads and directed fire against terrorist targets in the north of the Gaza Strip”, the military said.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said troops shot dead a Palestinian at a checkpoint near the city of Nablus after he “drew a knife and started to advance towards them.”
Syria said Israel carried out air strikes near Damascus on Saturday.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard accused Israel of killing two of its members in Syria who it said had been on an “advisory mission”.
Hamas in October last year said it had restored relations with Syria’s government.
Israeli attacks on targets in Syria have intensified since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Thousands remain trapped under rubble in Gaza: Civil defense unit
Thousands of bodies remain under the debris of buildings destroyed by ongoing Israeli attacks, civil defense teams in the Gaza Strip reported on Sunday, with equipment shortages preventing their retrieval.
In a written statement published by Gaza’s Interior Ministry, civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said Israeli forces have been targeting their teams in the enclave constantly since Oct. 7.
“Thousands of martyrs are still under the rubble, and we cannot retrieve them. There are clear and significant deficiencies in our capabilities and mechanisms. We cannot reach the bodies under the debris in the northern Gaza Strip,” said Basal, urging support for the civil defense unit.
The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
More than 15,200 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.
Hundreds of Swedes demonstrate outside Israeli embassy in solidarity with Palestinians
Hundreds of Swedes on Sunday demonstrated in solidarity with Palestinians outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm.
Around 600 protesters gathered in front of the embassy to show solidarity with Palestine.
Carrying Palestinian flags, protesters chanted slogans, including “boycott Israel” and “stop the genocide.”
The crowd also called for a boycott of Israeli products and businesses while expressing solidarity with Palestine.
Later, the group marched towards the city center, criticizing the Swedish government for being “complicit in Israeli war crimes” in Gaza.
The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
More than 15,500 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.
French president questions Israel’s plan to destroy Hamas
French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday that Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas is not convincing.
Macron emphasized that the Israeli government needs to define its goals and ultimate purpose more clearly at a news conference during the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai.
He asked if anyone believed it was possible to completely destroy Hamas. “If this is the case, the war will last 10 years,” he said.
Highlighting that security obtained at the expense of Palestinian lives would not be lasting for Israel, Macron pointed out Israel’s right to self-defense but underscored the importance of being within the framework of international law and avoiding the targeting of civilians.
Macron said there are no double standards for France and all lives are equal.
