CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in the north of the enclave on Tuesday, amid fierce battles with Hamas-led fighters.
Palestinian health officials said at least 17 people were killed by Israeli fire near Al-Falouja in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, while 10 others were killed in Bani Suhaila in eastern Khan Younis in the south when an Israeli missile struck a house.
Earlier on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed three houses in the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, and the local civil emergency service said they recovered two bodies from the site, while the search continued for 12 other people who were believed to have been in the houses at the time.
Eight others were killed when a house was struck in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
The Gaza health ministry said one doctor was killed when he tried to help people wounded by Israeli strikes in Al-Falouja in Jabalia. It added that several medics were wounded when their ambulance came under Israeli fire in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said troops had killed dozens of fighters in the Jabalia area over the past day, including a unit that fired an anti-tank missile at them.
The United Nations human rights office said the Israeli military appeared to be “cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip.”
Meanwhile in Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza to avoid legal action involving US military aid, according to news reports and sources.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said on Tuesday the Iran-backed group would inflict “pain” on Israel but he also called for a ceasefire as a conflict rages between them in south Lebanon.
The funeral of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general killed alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah drew the largest crowd of top leaders in the paramilitary organisation together Tuesday for the first time since Tehran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel.