UN’s Lazzarini says world should not develop into ‘numb’ after Israeli strikes kill about 50 Palestinians inside 24 hours.
Israel pounded Gaza in a single day with lethal assaults focusing on displaced folks in two camps and a faculty, because it ordered the pressured evacuation of one of many final hospitals barely working within the enclave’s besieged north.
The army launched a wave of assaults on the so-called “protected zone” of al-Mawasi within the south, setting refugee tents ablaze in a drone assault that killed seven folks, with additional strikes on a civilian automobile and a automobile carrying safety personnel killing 4 others.
In separate assaults, the army focused a faculty housing displaced folks in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing one particular person. It additionally killed 4 folks in an space north of the camp, in accordance with Al Jazeera Arabic and Palestinian information company Wafa.
The raids capped a bloody 24 hours within the Strip, with medical sources telling Al Jazeera Arabic {that a} complete of fifty folks had been killed since early Sunday.
Because the assaults continued, the army ordered the closure and compelled evacuation of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, endangering about 400 civilians, together with infants in incubators.
The hospital is likely one of the few nonetheless functioning within the north, the place hundreds of individuals have been trapped underneath a punishing siege for practically three months.
Wafa reported on Sunday that Israeli forces had been focusing on the hospital with bombs, artillery shells and sniper fireplace, particularly putting the ladies’s, maternity, and neonatal wards, killing three civilians.
The top of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safia, informed information company Reuters that the army was instantly focusing on gasoline tanks, which might probably “trigger a big explosion and mass casualties of the civilians inside”.
Obeying the order to close down was “subsequent to unimaginable” as a result of there weren’t sufficient ambulances to get sufferers out, he stated.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud stated: “We’re in a scenario proper now the place a marked evacuation zone isn’t protected for displaced folks, not the evacuation zone in al-Mawasi, not faculties, not shelters, not even hospitals.”
“We’re seeing repeated assaults on these specific designated areas for the previous month,” he stated. “What we’re seeing proper now’s highlighting the vulnerability of actually … traumatised, displaced civilians in these areas.”
Charity Oxfam stated on Sunday that Israeli authorities have allowed solely 12 assist vehicles into northern Gaza up to now two and a half months.
“Deliberate delays and systematic obstructions” by the army meant that solely 12 of the “meagre” 34 vehicles allowed to enter the zone had been in a position to distribute assist to ravenous Palestinians.
Philippe Lazzarini, the top of the UN’s company for Palestinian refugees, stated on Sunday that there had been an “escalation” in Israel’s warfare on Gaza over the previous 24 hours.
In a submit on X, he reiterated his requires a ceasefire, saying “the world should not develop into numb”.
#Gaza
Escalation over the previous 24 hours.
Extra civilians are reported killed and injured.Assaults on faculties and hospitals have been commonplace.
The world should not develop into numb.All wars have guidelines
All of these guidelines have been damaged.A ceasefire is lengthy overdue
A…— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 22, 2024