Health officials in the Gaza Strip say 24 people were killed in Israeli attacks

Health officials in the Gaza Strip said Israeli air strikes killed at least 24 people in the north of the territory on Saturday, a day after the International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed in an attack that damaged its office.

At least 120 people have been killed in the attacks on Gaza City in the last 48 hours, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said on Saturday.

Dr. Mahmud Aliwa of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City said 24 bodies had been brought to his facility following the attacks that left smoke rising over the city.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense, told AFP that at least 20 people were killed in an attack on a house in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, while an attack in the Al-Shati refugee camp claimed four more lives.

Against a grey backdrop of destruction, men used a donkey cart to carry away some of the dead in Al-Tuffah.

Earlier on Saturday, the Israeli military said its fighter jets would attack “two Hamas military infrastructure facilities in the Gaza City area.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on Saturday for an investigation into the attack that damaged the ICRC office.

“An independent investigation is needed and those responsible must be held accountable,” Borrell wrote on the social media platform X.

– “Dangerously close” –

Late Friday, the ICRC said 22 people had been taken to a Red Cross field hospital after being hit by “heavy-caliber projectiles” near its offices in the southern Gaza Strip.

“The fire, in such dangerous proximity to humanitarian structures, is endangering the lives of civilians and humanitarian workers,” the ICRC said on X.

The Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry blamed Israel for the attack and said 25 people were killed and 50 injured in the coastal region of Al-Mawasi, where thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter in tents.

An Israeli military statement on Saturday said an initial investigation had shown that there was “no direct attack by the Israeli forces on a Red Cross facility,” but that the incident was still being investigated and the “results will be presented to our international partners.”

On Saturday, witnesses reported gunfire in Gaza City between militants and Israeli forces, supported by helicopter fire.

The deadliest Gaza war to date began with an unprecedented attack by Hamas militias on southern Israel on October 7. That attack left 1,194 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took hostages, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip, but the army says 41 people have died.

At least 37,551 people were killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive, again mostly civilians, the Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry said on Saturday.

Exchanges of fire between Israel and the powerful Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah across the Lebanese border also escalated, raising fears of a wider war.

On Saturday, a security source said a leader of the Lebanese Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, a Hamas ally, was killed in an Israeli attack on a vehicle in eastern Lebanon.

– “Precise Strike” –

The Israeli military said an aircraft carried out a “precise strike” in Lebanon’s Bekaa region “to eliminate the terrorist” Ayman Ghotmeh, who it said had been supplying weapons to Hamas and Jamaa Islamiya in Lebanon.

Israeli warplanes attacked Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, the military said.

Nearly nine months after the start of Israel’s campaign to wipe out Hamas in the Gaza Strip, experts are divided on the prospect of a wider war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said cross-border hostilities must not turn Lebanon into “a second Gaza.”

He pointed to the “warlike rhetoric” of both sides and warned: “One hasty step – one miscalculation – could trigger a catastrophe that goes far beyond the limit and, frankly, beyond imagination.”

Violence has also increased sharply in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Israeli military announced on Saturday that an Israeli civilian had been shot and died near the town of Qalqilya.

Months of negotiations on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages have so far made no progress, but mediator Qatar said on Friday that work was continuing to “bridge the gap” between Israel and Hamas.

The war has destroyed much of the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure and residents lack food, fuel and other essential goods.

On June 16, the army announced a daily “tactical pause in military activities” in a corridor in the south of the Gaza Strip from the Kerem Shalom crossing to facilitate aid deliveries.

However, due to the breakdown of public order in Gaza, the UN has not been able to collect aid supplies from Kerem Shalom since Tuesday.

A further complication is that “you often have to cross battlefields,” says William Schomburg, head of the ICRC in Rafah near Egypt.

Israel says it has allowed supplies into the country and has asked authorities to increase deliveries.

For 66-year-old Umm Mohammad Zamlat, who was displaced to Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip, the result is painfully simple: “We don’t see any help.”

burs-it/srm