CAIRO: At least 31 people were killed during Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian medics said, with nearly half of the deaths in northern areas where the army has waged a month-long campaign it says aims to prevent Hamas regrouping.
Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were “ethnic cleansing” aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a camp of their population in order to create buffer zones. Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas who launch attacks from there.
Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on houses in Beit Lahiya town and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps and the focus of the army’s new offensive.
The rest were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and in southern areas, including one in Khan Younis, which health officials said had killed eight people, including four children.
Israel has not commented on its military actions in Gaza on Sunday.
On Saturday, the Israeli military sent a new army division to Jabalia to join two other operating battalions, a statement said. It said that hundreds of Palestinian militants have been killed in the “battles” since the raid began on Oct. 5.
Meanwhile, COGAT, the Israeli army’s Palestinian civilian affairs agency, said it facilitated the launch of the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza on Saturday and that 58,604 children have received a dose.
The Gaza health ministry said Israel’s military offensive in northern Gaza was stopping them from vaccinating thousands of children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun.
It said one clinic had come under Israeli fire while parents brought their children for the anti-polio dose on Saturday and that four children had been injured.
The head of the World Health Organization said in a statement the clinic incident took place despite a humanitarian pause agreed upon by the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas, to allow the vaccination campaign.
“A @WHO team was at the site just before. This attack, during a humanitarian pause, jeopardises the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Saturday.
“These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected. Ceasefire!” he said.
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