Israeli airstrike kills nine Palestinians in Gaza: Sources
Gaza: At least nine Palestinians were killed and dozens of others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian sources said.
Local sources and eyewitnesses said that an Israeli aircraft bombed a house on the outskirts of Maghazi camp with at least one missile.
Hussam Al-Daqran, spokesperson for Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza, told Xinhua that nine people were killed, including children and women, and dozens of wounded people were sent to the hospital following the airstrike.
The Israeli army did not comment on the raid, Xinhua news agency reported.
Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a press statement on Saturday that Israeli forces began operating at night against “terrorist targets in the Beit Hanoun area in light of prior intelligence information about the presence of a number of terrorists and terrorist facilities in the area.”
Before the forces entered, Israeli fighter jets, in cooperation with artillery fire, attacked “several terrorist targets in the area, including terrorist gathering points and other terrorist facilities belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation,” according to the statement.
Israel has been conducting a large-scale offensive against Hamas in Gaza to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on October 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in the enclave has risen to 45,484, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Saturday.
Earlier on December 25, at least 22 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Civil Defence in Gaza, told Xinhua that Israeli aircraft had targeted tents housing displaced persons inside the Al-Muhabban school in northern Gaza City.
Civil defence crews had recovered at least seven bodies and 25 injured individuals from the school following the Israeli attacks, transferring them to a local hospital, Basal said. Local sources and eyewitnesses reported that the tents had caught fire and some bodies were mutilated in the bombing.
The Israeli military said in a press statement that an Israeli Air Force aircraft, acting on intelligence, had targeted a Hamas member in the Al-Furqan area of Gaza City. The statement claimed the military had taken precautions, including the use of precision munitions, aerial photographs, and intelligence, to minimise civilian casualties.
In Beit Hanoun town in northern Gaza, four people had been killed in an Israeli bombing of a house sheltering displaced people, while paramedics reported four more deaths in an Israeli bombardment targeting a group of Palestinians east of Jabalia.