GAZA: Israel sustained its aerial and ground bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing dozens of Palestinians, as fighting raged around Gaza City’s main Al Shifa hospital, Palestinian officials and the Israeli military said.
Palestinian officials said two Israeli strikes on the Al-Shejaia suburb in eastern Gaza City killed 17 persons, while an Israeli air strike on a house in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip killed eight persons. Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said at least 10 policemen, tasked with securing aid to the displaced in northern Gaza, were also killed in Al-Shejaia.
The Israeli military said its forces continued operations in around Gaza City’s Al Shifa complex “while mitigating harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment”, adding that over the past day it killed a number of gunmen and located weapons and military infrastructure. 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 Israeli statement said its forces raided central and southern areas where troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen before they killed them.