ShareCAIRO: Two Zionist air strikes targeting aid supplies killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza on Monday, medics said, as Zionist tanks pushed deeper into Rafah in the south and fought their way back into areas in the north they had already subdued months ago.
One strike at a food distribution center in Gaza City, near the Shati historic refugee camp, killed three people. Another, near Bani Suhaila town in the southern Gaza Strip, killed at least eight, including guards who accompany aid trucks, the medics said. There was no immediate comment from the Zionist entity, which denies attacking aid efforts and accuses militants of causing harm to civilians by operating among them.
Overnight, a Zionist air strike at a medical clinic in Gaza City killed the director of Gaza’s Ambulance and Emergency Department, the enclave’s health ministry said. The Zionist military said that strike had killed a senior Hamas armed commander.
The health ministry said the killing of Hani Al-Jaafarawi brought the number of medical staff killed by Zionist fire since Oct 7 to 500. At least 300 others have so far been detained. In a statement, the Zionist military said the strike targeted Mohammad Salah, who it said was responsible for developing Hamas weaponry.
Screening for malnutrition
More than eight months into the fighting, international mediation backed by the United States has so far failed to bring a ceasefire agreement. Hamas says any agreement must bring an end to the war, while the entity says it will agree only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas is eradicated.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Zionist forces which took control of the eastern, southern, and central parts of the city pursued their raid into the western and northern areas, said residents, describing heavy fighting. On Sunday, residents had said Zionist tanks had advanced to the edge of the Mawasi displaced persons’ camp in the northwest of Rafah, forcing many families to leave northward to Khan Yunis and to Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, the only city in the enclave where tanks have not yet invaded.
“The situation in Tel Al-Sultan, in western Rafah, remains very dangerous. Drones and (Zionist) snipers are hunting people who try to check on their houses, and tanks continue to take over areas overseeing Al-Mawasi further west,” Bassam, a resident of Rafah, told Reuters via a chat app. The Zionist military said forces continued “intelligence-based targeted operations” in Rafah, locating weapons and rocket launchers and killing militants “who posed threats to them.”
In the north of the enclave, where the Zionist entity had said its forces completed operations months ago, residents said tanks had pushed back into Gaza City’s Zeitoun suburb and were pounding several areas there. In Deir Al-Balah, now the last refuge for many thousands of Gazans following the assault on Rafah, medics at a clinic said they were working to step up screening of young children for severe malnutrition. “With the displacement, communities are settling in new locations that do not have access to clean water, or there is not adequate access to food,” said Muaamar Said, a doctor with aid group International Medical Corps. “We fear there are more cases being missed.”
The group and partners are planning to reach more than 200,000 under five-years-old as part of a campaign over coming months. Over the weekend, families were already coming into the clinic. Five-year-old Jana Ayad had weighed just 9 kilograms when she arrived, suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, Nutrition Officer Raghda Ibrahim Qeshta told Reuters as she carefully held the child. “My daughter was dying in front of me,” said Nasma Ayad as she sat next to the bed. “I didn’t know what to do.” Jana had started putting on some weight after treatment, medics said, but she was still painfully thin with her ribs showing as she lay listlessly in her bunny pajamas. A group of UN-led aid agencies estimates that around 7 percent of Gazan children may be acutely malnourished, compared with 0.8 percent before the war.
Intense fighting to end soon
The Zionist entity began a ground and air campaign in Gaza after Hamas-led militants attacked the south of the Zionist entity on Oct 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Zionist tallies. The Zionist offensive has killed almost 37,600 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and has left Gaza in ruins.
Netanyahu said the phase of intense fighting against Hamas would end “very soon”. In an interview with the Zionist channel 14, he said forces based in Gaza would be freed to move to the north, where the entity has warned of a potential full-blown war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, which has struck the border region in what it says is solidarity with the Palestinians. “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.
The interview was Netanyahu’s first since the start of the war in a television format. He said he would support only a temporary ceasefire, before troops would return to fighting. Hamas said this was evidence that he was reneging on a truce offer touted by the White House and backed by the United Nations. The remarks showed that Netanyahu was using ceasefire negotiations only as a stalling tactic while combat continues, Ezzat El-Reshiq, a senior Hamas political official who lives in exile, said in a statement. — Reuters
