PV Desk ( 24 June 2024) Palestinian witnesses said that eight Palestinians were killed on Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on a training college near Gaza City being used to distribute aid. The source also said Israeli tanks pushed further into the southern Palestinian city of Rafah.
The Israeli strike hit part of a vocational college run by the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA that is now providing aid to displaced families.
Mohammed Tafesh, one of the witnesses ” suddenly we heard something falling. We ran away.
A Reuters photographer saw bodies wrapped in blankets laid out beside the road, waiting to be taken away as a low-rise building completely demolished.
“There are about four or five martyrs and 10 injured, Tafesh said “We pulled out martyrs (from beneath the rubble), one who used to sell cold drinks and another who used to sell pastries and others who distributed or received coupons”.
The Israeli military said precautionary measures were taken before the strike to reduce the risk of harming civilians . the site, which it said had served in the past as a UNRWA headquarters, has been used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. It added.
The Israeli military said in a statement, “this morning (Sunday), IAF fighter jets struck terrorist infrastructure in which Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were operating,”
Hamas also denies Israeli accusations that it uses civilians as human shields or civilian facilities for military purposes.
Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications said, “since the beginning of the war, we have recorded that nearly 190 of our buildings have been hit. This is the vast majority of our buildings in Gaza,” she said. A total of 193 UNRWA team members have been killed in the conflict,
The agency was looking into details of the reported attack before providing more information, she added.
Hamas media report, Hani Al-Jaafarwi director of ambulance and emergency services at the territory’s health ministry and another medical staffer were killed in an Israeli air strike hit a clinic in Gaza City Just after midnight. But, there was no immediate Israeli comment.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the phase of intense fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip would end “very soon” but that the war would not end until the Islamist group no longer controls the Palestinian enclave.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 14″after the intense phase is finished, we will have the possibility to move part of the forces north. And we will do this,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s fighting against Iran-backed Hezbollah has escalated on the northern border with Lebanon, where many Israeli towns have been evacuated. Netanyahu said a northern deployment would allow residents to come home.
More than eight months into Israel’s war in the Hamas-administered Palestinian enclave, its advance is focused on the two areas its forces have yet to seize – Rafah on Gaza’s southern tip and the area surrounding Deir al-Balah in the centre.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza was triggered on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli offensive has killed almost 37,600 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and has left Gaza in ruins.
