GAZA STRIP: Israeli bombing killed dozens of people in besieged Gaza, the health ministry of the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said Thursday, as regional tensions have surged over the almost three-months-old war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to head to the Middle East, a US official said on condition of anonymity, the top diplomat’s fourth trip to the region since the Hamas attack of October 7 triggered the bloodiest ever Gaza war.
The Israeli military, in its campaign to destroy the Islamist militant group, has reported more strikes in and around Gaza City, now a largely devastated urban combat zone, and Khan Yunis, the biggest city in the territory’s south.
The Gaza health ministry reported “dozens of martyrs and more than 100 wounded in the continued barbaric aerial and artillery bombardment of citizens’ homes in the Gaza Strip”.
The Israeli army said it targeted “terrorists” attempting to “place an explosive device near soldiers” and an arms depot in Khan Yunis.
Fires sparked by bombing raged in Gaza’s central Deir al-Balah area and the Al-Maghazi refugee camp.
“People were safe in their homes, the house was full of children,” resident Ibrahim al-Ghimri told AFP. “There were around 30 people. All of a sudden their houses fell on them... What have these children done?”
Tensions have also surged with Israel’s northern neighbour Lebanon, where a strike in Beirut, widely assumed to have been carried out by Israel, killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri, who was being buried Thursday, mourned by large crowds.
Aruri was killed Tuesday in the south Beirut stronghold of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has traded tit-for-tat fire across the border with Israel for months.
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