Dozens feared dead in Gaza after Israeli strikes

The year-long war in Gaza has devastated the tiny Palestinian territory – Copyright AFP Eyad BABA

Dozens of people were killed or unaccounted for after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, a hospital director and the civil defence agency said Thursday.

One strike on a residential area near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the territory left “dozens of people” dead or missing, the facility’s director Hossam Abu Safiya told AFP.

The process of retrieving the bodies and wounded continues, he said, adding: “Bodies arrive at the hospital in pieces.”

Another strike was reported in a neighbourhood of Gaza City. 

“We can confirm that 22 martyrs were transferred (to hospital) after a strike targeted a house” in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

Since Hamas conducted its October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, Israel has been fighting a war in Gaza, which the militant group rules.

It vows to crush Hamas and to bring home the hostages seized by the group during the attack.

Israel is also fighting Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both groups are backed by Israel’s arch-foe Iran.

On Thursday, US envoy Amos Hochstein will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek a truce in the war in Lebanon.

Hochstein’s meetings in Lebanon this week appeared to indicate some progress in efforts to end that war.

On the Gaza front, the United States vetoed on Wednesday a UN Security Council push for a ceasefire that Washington said would have emboldened Hamas.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll from the resulting war has reached 43,985 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.

– ‘Freedom to act’ –

In October last year, Hezbollah began cross-border attacks on Israel in support of its ally Hamas.

In late September, Israel expanded the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon, vowing to fight Hezbollah until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by the cross-border fire are able to return home.

With Hochstein in Lebanon, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Wednesday said that any ceasefire deal must ensure Israel still has the “freedom to act” against Hezbollah.

In a defiant speech, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem threatened to strike Israeli commercial hub Tel Aviv in retaliation for attacks on Lebanon’s capital.

“Israel cannot defeat us and cannot impose its conditions on us,” Qassem said in his televised address.

In Lebanon, Hochstein met with officials including parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah.

On Tuesday, Hochstein said the end of the war was “within our grasp”, and on Wednesday, he said the talks had “made additional progress”.

Since expanding its operations from Gaza to Lebanon in September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds.

More than 3,544 people in Lebanon have been killed since the clashes began, authorities have said, most since late September. Among them were more than 200 children, according to the United Nations.

Israel has also recently intensified strikes on neighbouring Syria, the main conduit of weapons for Hezbollah from its backer Iran.

In the latest attack, a Syria war monitor said 71 pro-Iran fighters were killed in strikes on Palmyra in the east of the country.

Those killed in Wednesday’s strikes included 45 fighters from pro-Iran Syrian groups, 26 foreign fighters, most of them from Iraq, and four from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the monitor said.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country. 

– Fighting in south Lebanon –

On Thursday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah’s main bastion, following an evacuation call by the Israeli military.

Strikes also hit south Lebanon, including the border town of Khiam where Israeli troops are pushing to advance, according to the agency.

On Wednesday, Israel said three soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon — bringing the total fallen to 52 since the start of ground operations on September 30.

The Lebanese army said Israeli fire killed one of its soldiers in the area, after it announced the deaths of three other personnel in a strike.

While not engaged in the ongoing war, the Lebanese army has reported 18 losses since the start of the escalation on September 23.

The Israeli military later said, without mentioning the deaths, that it was looking into reports of Lebanese soldiers wounded by a strike on Tuesday.

“We emphasise that the (Israeli military) is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation and is not operating against the Lebanon Armed Forces,” the military told AFP in a statement.

Hezbollah was the only armed group in Lebanon that did not surrender its weapons following the 1975-1990 civil war.

It has maintained a formidable arsenal and holds sway not only on the battlefield but also in Lebanese politics.

The United States, Israel’s top military and political backer, has been pushing for the UN Security Council resolution that ended the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006 to form the basis of a new truce.

Under Resolution 1701, Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.