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CAIRO (Reuters) – Israel sustained its aerial and ground bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Friday, martyring 71 Palestinians, as fighting raged around Gaza City’s main Al Shifa hospital, Palestinian officials and the Israeli military said.
They said two Israeli strikes on the Al-Shejaia suburb in eastern Gaza City martyred 17 people, while an Israeli air strike on a house in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip martyred eight people. It added that at least 10 policemen, tasked with securing aid to the displaced in northern Gaza, were among those killed in Al-Shejaia. The Health Ministry in Gaza said that at least 32,623 people have been martyred in the territory during more than five months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes at least 71 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 75,092 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7. Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, had been one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in north Gaza before the latest fighting. It had also been housing displaced civilians.
The armed wing of Hamas said their fighters targeted Israeli forces near to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the city’s two hospitals blockaded by Israeli soldiers for several days. Thousands more dead are believed to be buried under rubble and more than 80% of Gazans have been displaced, many at risk of famine. In the northern Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has warned famine is imminent as early as May, an elderly man died of malnutrition and lack of medication, Palestinian media said.
On Thursday, the World Court unanimously ordered Israel to take all necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies to Gaza’s population and halt spreading famine. “The renewed binding order from the @ICJ (International Court of Justice) yesterday is a stark reminder that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is man made and worsening. It can however still be reversed,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, said on X.
“(This) means that Israel must reverse its decision and allow @UNRWA to reach northern Gaza with food and nutrition convoys on a daily basis and to open additional land crossings,” he added. Earlier this week, UNRWA said Israel told it that it would no longer approve its food convoys to north Gaza. Four such requests were denied since March 21, it added.
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