Israel launches 400 strikes across Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians killed

A barrage of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip crushed several residential buildings and buried families under rubble on Tuesday, while health officials in the besieged area reported hundreds of deaths and the closure of medical facilities over the past day due to bomb damage and a lack of power. .

The rising death toll from the escalating Israeli bombardment is unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It portends even greater loss of life in Gaza once Israeli forces, backed by tanks and artillery, launch an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas militants.

Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been without food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the area following Hamas’ devastating October 7 attack on towns in southern Israel.

Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 704 people, mostly women and children, in the past day. The AP could not independently verify the death toll cited by Hamas, which said it matched daily figures provided by hospital directors.

Israel said Tuesday it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, killing Hamas commanders, hitting militants preparing to fire rockets into Israel and attacking command centers and a Hamas tunnel shaft. Israel reported 320 attacks the day before.

Scenes of rescuers pulling the dead and wounded from large piles of rubble from collapsed buildings were repeated in key cities of central and southern Gaza, where Israel had ordered civilians to take shelter.

Graphic photos and videos taken by The Associated Press showed rescuers digging to unearth small bodies from the ruins.

A father knelt on the floor of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, next to the bodies of three dead children, wrapped in bloody sheets. Later, workers at the nearby mortuary prayed for 24 dead, wrapped in body bags, several the size of small children.

In several cases, dozens of people were killed when buildings collapsed, witnesses said. Two families lost a total of 47 members in a razed house in Rafah, the Health Ministry said.

An attack on a four-story building in Khan Younis killed at least 32 people, including 13 members of the Saqallah family, said Ammar al-Butta, a relative who survived the airstrike. He said about 100 people were sheltering in the building, including many who had been evacuated from Gaza City.

“We thought our area would be safe,” he said.

Another strike destroyed a busy marketplace in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, witnesses said. AP photos showed the floor of a grocery store covered in blood.

In Gaza City, at least 19 people were killed when an airstrike hit the home of the Bahloul family, who said dozens of people were still buried there, according to survivors. The legs of a dead woman and another person, both still half-buried, dangled from the wreckage where workers dug through the dirt, concrete and rebar.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry says more than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including about 2,300 minors. The figure includes the disputed toll resulting from an explosion at a hospital last week.

According to the Israeli government, the fighting in Israel has killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians killed in the first Hamas attack.

As the death toll in Gaza continued to rise, facilities to accommodate the victims dwindled. More than half of primary health care facilities, and about one in three hospitals, were no longer functioning, the World Health Organization said.

Gaza’s five main hospitals were all filled beyond capacity, the territory’s health ministry said.

Hospital staff struggled to assess cases as constant waves of ambulances and private cars carrying the injured pulled up outside the hospital. The Health Ministry said many injured people are being laid to the ground without even simple medical intervention, while others wait for days for operations because there are so many critical cases.

While Israel has allowed a small number of trucks full of aid, it has banned fuel deliveries to Gaza.

The rising toll has made it difficult for Palestinians to bury the vast numbers of dead, with cemeteries forced to dig up and reuse old plots and bury up to five bodies in one grave.

Hundreds of bodies pour in every day. We use every empty centimeter in the cemeteries, says Abdel Rahman Mohamed, a volunteer who helps transfer bodies to the main cemetery of Khan Younis.

Israel says it is not targeting civilians and that Hamas militants are using them as cover for their attacks. Palestinian militants have fired more than 7,000 rockets into Israel since the start of the war, Israel said, and Hamas said it fired a new barrage on Tuesday morning.

We continue to strike vigorously in Gaza City and the surrounding area, where Hamas is building its terrorist infrastructure, where Hamas is deploying its forces, said Israeli military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari. He again told Palestinians to go south for their personal safety.

On Monday, Hamas released two elderly Israeli women. They were among more than 200 people Israel says were taken to Gaza during the attack.

Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, who looked weak in a wheelchair and spoke softly, told reporters on Tuesday that the militants beat her with sticks, bruised her ribs and made it difficult to breathe as they kidnapped her.

They drove her into Gaza and then forced her to walk several kilometers over wet ground to reach a network of tunnels that resembled a spider’s web, she said.

But once there, her treatment improved, she said.

Lifshitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper were released days after an American woman and her teenage daughter were released. Hamas and other militants in Gaza are believed to have taken around 220 people, including an unconfirmed number of foreigners and dual nationals.

The Israeli army dropped leaflets in Gaza asking Palestinians to reveal information about the whereabouts of the hostages. In return, the military promised a reward and protection for the informant’s home.

Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas. Iran-backed fighters in the region are warning of possible escalation, including targeting US forces in the Middle East, if a ground offensive is launched.

The US has told Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and other groups not to join the fighting. Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border almost daily, and Israeli warplanes have struck targets in Syria, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank in recent days.