By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli military strikes killed at least 32 people across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, as forces tightened a siege around hospitals in Jabalia in the north of the enclave.
In the central Gaza Strip camp of Al-Maghzai, an Israeli strike on a house killed 11 people, while another strike at the nearby camp of Nuseirat killed four others.
Five other people were killed in two separate strikes in the south Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, medics said, while seven Palestinians were killed in the Shati camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Late on Friday, medics said 33 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 85 others were wounded in Israeli strikes that destroyed at least three houses in Jabalia.
“IDF troops are currently operating in the Jabalia area against Hamas terrorist infrastructure and terrorists. We are unaware of the incident,” the Israeli military said.
It said forces were continuing operations against Hamas across the enclave, killing several gunmen in Rafah and Jabalia and dismantling military infrastructure. Palestinian medics said five people were killed in Jabalia on Saturday.
Residents and medics said Israeli forces had tightened their siege on Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic camps, which it encircled by also sending tanks to nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and issuing evacuation orders to residents.
Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied that there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas.
But residents and medical officials said Israeli forces were bombing houses and besieging hospitals, preventing medical and food supplies from entering to force them to leave the camp.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army to evacuate the hospital or leave the patients, many in critical condition, unattended.
“The Israeli occupation is intensifying its targeting of the health system in the northern Gaza Strip, by besieging and directly targeting the Indonesian Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital, and Al-Awda Hospital during the past hours and its insistence on putting them out of service,” the Gaza health ministry said.
It said two patients in intensive care at the Indonesian Hospital died “as a result of the hospital’s siege and the power outage and medical supplies”.
Israel’s military said the troops operating in the area had been “briefed on the importance of mitigating harm to civilians and medical infrastructure”.
“It is emphasized that the hospital continues to operate without disruption and in full capacity, and there was no intentional fire directed at it,” it said.
Medics said a nurse at the Kamal Adwan Hospital was killed along with some members of his family in an Israeli air strike on their house overnight in Jabalia camp.
Israel launched the offensive against Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage to Gaza, by Israeli tallies. More than 42,500 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive so far, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi. Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta and Maayan Lubell, writing by Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Toby Chopra and Alison Williams)
