Israeli strikes kill at least 12 Palestinians in Gaza

2024-10-09 08:26:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Israeli strikes have killed at least 12 Palestinians, including nine members of the same family, in northern and central Gaza, the official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA reported early Wednesday.

The nine members of the family were killed in an attack that targeted their apartment in the Shejaia neighborhood in northern Gaza, WAFA reported, citing medics.

Meanwhile, in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, three others were killed, including a child, and several were injured in an Israeli attack, WAFA added.

On October 7, 2023, militants led by Hamas – the Palestinian group designated a terrorist organization by the US and the EU – attacked Israeli towns and villages near the border, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.

Israel's subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave's health ministry, displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million residents and created a humanitarian crisis with widespread hunger and the destruction of critical infrastructure and health care.

The Israeli military said on October 7 that over the past year it has bombed more than 40,000 targets in Gaza, discovered 4,700 tunnels and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites.

The conflict in Gaza is still ongoing, while Israel is now fighting a second front in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.

On the morning of October 7, Hezbollah, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, fired rockets at the northern Israeli cities of Haifa and Tiberias, causing damage and some minor injuries, according to Israeli police.

The European Union has blacklisted Hezbollah's armed wing, but not its political wing, which has seats in the Lebanese parliament. In recent weeks, Israel has bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut and is conducting a ground incursion into southern Lebanon in an attempt to destroy Hezbollah.

Israel's campaign against Hezbollah prompted the group's patron, Iran, to respond by attacking the Jewish state with a barrage of rockets, the vast majority of which were destroyed by Israeli air defenses without causing significant damage, but the attack revived fears of a further conflict. wide regional./REL