Gaza: 22 dead and 45 injured in Israeli attack, reports Red Cross | World News

The International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed in an attack that damaged its office in the Gaza Strip on Friday, as the Israeli army intensified its attacks on the besieged Palestinian territory.

In recent weeks, exchanges of fire between Israel and the powerful Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group across the Lebanese border have also escalated, raising fears of an even wider war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that cross-border hostilities must not turn Lebanon into “a second Gaza” and warned of the risk of an “unimaginable” catastrophe.

Read also: Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fuel fears of escalation of Gaza war

His warning came as Israel stepped up its attacks in the Gaza Strip, where a Gaza City hospital reported at least 30 deaths.

Further south, the ICRC said 22 bodies and 45 wounded people had been taken to a Red Cross field hospital near its office in the Gaza Strip after being hit by “heavy-caliber projectiles.” The hospital was surrounded by displaced people living in tents.

“Fire from such dangerous proximity to humanitarian structures is endangering the lives of civilians and humanitarian workers,” the ICRC said on the social media platform X.

The Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area blamed Israel for the attack, saying 25 people were killed and 50 injured in the Al-Mawasi area near the ICRC office, not far from Rafah.

A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces did not admit any involvement in the incident, but said the incident was being “investigated.”

“A difficult and brutal day”

In the north of the Gaza Strip, the director of Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital was quoted by the region’s health ministry as saying that 30 people had been killed in attacks.

“It has been a difficult and brutal day in Gaza City. So far, around 30 martyrs have arrived at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital,” Doctor Fadel Naeem was quoted as saying.

Also read: How Hamas fooled Israeli surveillance, exposed by US: Is Israel Defense Forces’ high-tech espionage in Gaza failing?

Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense Authority, said five municipal employees were killed in the bombing of a garage in the city.

The Israeli military reported operations “north and south of the central Gaza Strip corridor” on Friday.

The operations around Gaza coincided with escalating hostilities along the Lebanese border.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, said it fired dozens of rockets at a barracks in northern Israel on Thursday in retaliation for a deadly air strike in southern Lebanon.

Israel said a Hezbollah member was killed in the attack.

Hezbollah also claimed responsibility on Friday for several attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border, including two with drones.

The Israeli army said it carried out several retaliatory strikes on both days.

Israeli jets attacked a “Hezbollah military structure in the Khiam area, a Hezbollah military post in the Meiss El Jabal area and a Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in the Taybeh and Tallouseh areas in southern Lebanon” on Friday, the army said in a statement.

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.

Amid escalating clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, the Israeli military said on Tuesday that plans for an offensive in Lebanon had been “approved and confirmed.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that in the event of a major war, “no place” in Israel “would be spared from our rockets,” and also threatened nearby EU member Cyprus.

Referring to the “warlike rhetoric” of both sides, UN chief Guterres said on Friday that the danger of a full-scale war was real.

“One hasty action – one miscalculation – could trigger a catastrophe that would go far beyond the limit and, frankly, beyond anyone’s imagination,” he said.

Israel’s ally the USA called for de-escalation.

‘Nothing left’

The violence on the border with Lebanon began after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked southern Israel on October 7. The attack killed 1,194 people, most of them 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.

Read also: 8 Israeli soldiers killed in fighting in Gaza Strip

According to the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, at least 37,431 people, again mostly civilians, had been killed by the Israeli retaliatory offensive by Thursday.

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

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

On June 16, the army announced that it would impose a daily “tactical pause in military activities” in a corridor in the south of the Gaza Strip to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.

But on Friday, Richard Peeperkorn of the World Health Organization said: “We see no impact on incoming humanitarian aid deliveries.”

Hisham Salem from Jabalia refugee camp told AFP: “The markets used to be full, but now there is nothing. I go all over the market and cannot find a kilo of onions, and if I do, they cost 140 shekels ($37).”

Dr Thanos Gargavanis, WHO trauma surgeon and emergency physician, said the UN in Gaza was trying to “operate in an impractical environment”.

According to the WHO, 17 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are operational, but only partially.

It said that on May 17, only 750 people remained in the city of Rafah, where 1.4 million people had previously found shelter.

Two soldiers killed

On Friday, the Israeli military identified two more soldiers killed in Gaza, bringing the number of soldiers killed since ground operations began to at least 312.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial for corruption charges, which he denies. There are regular street protests demanding an agreement to release the hostages and accusing him of prolonging the war.

But Netanyahu told the relatives of the prisoners killed in Gaza: “We will not leave the Gaza Strip until all the hostages have returned.”

The war has reignited global pressure to give the Palestinians their own state.

Armenia declared its recognition of the “State of Palestine” on Friday, prompting Israel to summon its ambassador to issue him “a stern rebuke.”